The Refugee Prayer Rug - The Global Prayer Rug Project

Want to support Amor in gifting prayer rugs to refugees? You can buy a prayer rug for newcomers as part of the Global Prayer Rug Project - www.launchgood.com/GlobalPray...
We first met Amor in 2019 and it was clear that her life is embodied by this name she has chosen for herself. Her own journey to the United States as a refugee was deeply connected to her journey to Islam. Living in the San Diego borderlands we hear a lot of stories about Muslim refugees in detention centers, crossing the border however they can and even this week we heard of a group of refugees from Turkey, and Afghanistan stuck between the two border fences in Tijuana. We have made films about this work, we have advocated, we have protested, but sometimes its the most basic things that make people feel like they can build a home here.
For Amor that has been as simple as buying someone a halal meal when they arrive or giving them a gift basket with a prayer rug. Can you imagine the journey that so many take to get to the United States or Europe? You can get an idea through films like the Swimmers, The Pirogue, or Human Flow. But can you imagine as a Muslim having nothing with you, not being able to eat halal meat for maybe months or never having a clean place to pray?
Amor has been working with a network of nonprofits across San Diego / Tijuana to provide these basic things for newcomers to our country and we want to help her. If you give a $25 gift to our Global Prayer Rugs campaign we will make sure that she can continue this work. For every prayer rug we make we will gift one prayer rug to a refugee or a person in prison who needs access to their basic prayer necessities. Another key component of our Global Prayer Rug project will be a refugee prayer rug competition for refugee designers around the world.
Check out the short video we made with Amor where she describes her journey, “In 2017 when I noticed the influx of Muslim refugees and asylees I partnered with several nonprofits here in the border to provide halal meals and prayer mats. I started this because I saw the need of people and I wanted them to feel welcome to the new country that they were coming to.
I embarked on a spiritual journey when I came to this country, and I believe that most of the people that I’ve been helping providing them with halal meats or prayer mats have felt the same way. They see us, they feel connected to us because we’re Muslims.
They enjoy their meat and more than anything they are thankful to their Lord to be safe to finally be here. They are really grateful that we are there for them, they see the prayer mats and they say is this for me and they’re thankful you know. Right away they ask where can they pray. Where can I pray, and prostrate, and thank my Lord for being here and being safe.
That is something that I still feel it until this day, I remember their faces and their gratefulness and it fills my heart.”