About Us
Our Journey
Mafiq foundation is a non-profit organization established in 2001.
The founder, Dr. Mohammad S. Choudhury, conceived this idea in January 2000 in memory of his eldest son, Mafiq Choudhury. He was a young college student who tragically lost his life on March 15, 1983 in a motorcycle accident in Nigeria.
May Allah (SWT) have mercy on Mafiq and all those volunteers who are striving hard to establish this foundation.
The various youth development program activities organized by the foundation help in fostering and nurturing basic ingredients of leadership skills and traits of a strong leader. Our year-round trainings and programs foster, nurture, and promote effective communications through writing, speaking, and creative arts via annual Essay Panel Contest (EPC), persuasive argumentation and critical analysis via annual Muslim Youth Debate Tournament (MYDT), and a real-world problem-solving experience to scientifically investigate socio-cultural issues via Muslim Youth Scholar Training Institute (MySTI), COOOL summer immersive program and Muslim Youth Hackathon (MY-Hack).
Dr. Mohammad S. Choudhury, along with all active volunteers, envision Mafiq foundation to continue inspiring as an exemplary organization benefiting the community at large to attain the pleasure of Allah (SWT). He also looks forward to having a physical property for Mafiq Foundation in the Metro Washington DC area so it can retain continuity of its missions and programs that have touched so many youths, especially in the Greater Metro DC-Maryland-Virginia (DMV) area.
With over a two decade long successful journey, the foundation has annually conducted numerous events for nurturing different skill sets. Please review the “What We Do” page for details about all our initiatives.
Since the inception of the foundation in 2001, Mafiq Foundation grew from one event to over five unique events with enhanced content and offerings over the years.
These events were initially organised in the Greater Metro DC-Maryland-Virginia(DMV) area and have slowly grown in popularity far and wide.
With events being conducted virtually, in-parts or in full, students from around the globe get an opportunity to participate in these events.
Mission Statement
“Fostering and Nurturing tomorrow’s Muslim leaders for a better society”
Our mission is to develop socially responsible leadership skills among Muslim youth through the organization of and participation in workshops and competitions.
Our Programs
Essay Panel Competition (EPC)
Since 2002, Mafiq Foundation has been organising the annual Essay Panel Competition for elementary, middle, and high school students.
Every year, an overall Islamic theme is selected for each age group. Typically, over 100 participants each year write essays within a word limit and orally present it in front of multiple judges and audience.
Mafiq has also introduced poster and multimedia competitions within this category to encourage the use of modern technology in the Muslim youth. These activities have inspired intellectual abilities within the youth that is evident in their writing, speaking, and multimedia presentations.
Collections of top ranked essays written by Grades 1 to 12 students are published regularly in a series of books titled.
Muslim Youth Debate Tournament (MYDT)
Since 2006, Mafiq has also been organizing annual debate tournaments in the middle and high school levels. These debates are in parliamentary form where teams of three speakers prepare arguments supporting or opposing a given debatable statement. Within the competition, each team debates three times, the first two debate topics being announced prior to the competition and the last round being impromptu.
All the debate topics are related to the present day American Muslim Society.
Throughout the year, Mafiq Foundation also organises separate debate workshops to train participants as well as judges on the rules and structure of the parliamentary debate.
This unique competition enables our Muslim youth to think critically and voice their argumentative opinions in a respectable manner. Through MYDT, many debaters from our workshops have moved forward and became influential debaters in their individual universities. In the past, Mafiq has also showcased this program in the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA) and Islamic Community of North America (ICNA) annual conventions. The popularity of MYDT has spiked so much that ICNA has invited Mafiq to organise MYDT on a national level under the ICNA umbrella. This demonstrates the value and potential of this program
Muslim Youth Scholar Training Internship (MYSTI)
Since 2013,, Mafiq has additionally organized scholarship programs each year for Muslim high school seniors, undergraduate, and graduate college students who are interested in doing socio-cultural scientific research. This program offers a summer-long opportunity to pursue scientific investigation of relevant social issues regarding the Muslim community, global environment and society, and how all of these interact.
The socio-scientific research hypotheses are usually picked from the agenda of current Muslim issues, proposed by the students and assisted by their assigned research advisors. Through this program, students are taught how to write research papers and how to gather and analyse data to support a hypothesis.
COOOL Summer Program
Since 2016, Mafiq has organized a week-long summer program for middle and high school students in two tracks, namely Research Internship Preparatory and Cybersecurity training.
The first track teaches students the foundational concepts of Islamic and Scientific research methodologies, the art and science of developing a research proposal, and different analytical tools and software (like Excel, Data visualization tools, and web development tools), which allow them to analyze statistical data sets and carry on the research goals. The second track is based on the premise of creating producers as opposed to consumers in the internet society and teaches students the basics of building their own web through web development tools and Python programming as well as the fundamentals of cyber security and safety.
The basic idea of this program is to keep the youth engaged in full-day activities where the students are not only learning inside the classroom but also engaged outside of the classroom through games and relevant outdoor activities
Muslim Youth Hackathon (MY Hack)
Since 2022, Mafiq also started an annual event to encourage technical innovation and collaboration for high-school students and older.
It is a weekend-long sprint-like event where teams exercise imagination and use technology to innovate for social good. This helps participants learn new skills, meet new people, and use technology to unlock new possibilities in an inclusive environment.
Young Muslim Voices (YMV)
YMV is a compilation of selected essays submitted at our annual EPC.
YMV captures a unique snapshot of our youths’ thought process on topics of Islamic Interest and the historical collection in YMV could play a vital role in defining the roadmap for future generations.