Clean Up Australia Day’s leaderboard, which details the top fundraising sites and organisations with the most registered volunteers, has found that Australia’s Ahmadi Muslim organisations were among the most giving during the 2017 event, held last weekend.
Ahmadi Muslim groups held the top four spots in both categories, with organisations split between the New South Wales, South Australia, Queensland and Victoria chapters.
More than 1,000 volunteers from the Muslim group worked at 26 Clean Up sites throughout the nation, offering their time to help clean up their country,
The four state-based sites finished ahead of Sydney-based ‘Friends of Cabarita Park and Wharf’ in terms of money raised, with the NSW chapter of the Muslim group earning more than three times more for Clean Up Australia than the non-affiliated group.
The NSW chapter also came out on top with the most registered volunteers, totalling 157 more individuals than the Kiama-based Berkeley Road group.
The Ahmadiyya Muslim Association Australia in the Clean Up campaign since its inaugural event in 1989, with the organisation thanking them for their continued effort in a post in social media.
The Clean Up Australia Day stats Source: Clean Up Australia
Speaking with SBS on the weekend, National President of Ahmadi Youth, Waqas Ahmad discussed the significance of the event for the Muslim community.
"It is a fundamental teaching of Islam - our religion and the practice of the founder of Islam, the Holy Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon Him, who said that cleanliness is part of your faith," Ahmad said.
"So we take up any initiative, which involves cleaning of not only ourselves as individuals - our inner-selves and our outer-selves, but also our surroundings, our homes and where we work and then our country at large.
"So we live in a country - Australia - which is a beautiful country. It [the group's involvement] started with this initiative a long time ago and just to keep to our faith and practice the teaching of the Prophet Muhammad, it is a very important part of our faith to take part in this event - not only as Muslims but as Australians."
Pauline Hanson recently appeared on the ABC TV program Insiders, claiming that Muslims don’t ‘assimilate’ into Australian life.
"They hate Western society. They want to change us…, “ Hanson told ABC TV program Insiders.
“If you are going to have different races that come into Australia, they've got to actually assimilate and blend into our society and become Australians," she said, insisting that wasn't happening in some areas and promising to "keep an eye on this".
