Our thoughts and prayers are with the families and friends of those who have lost their lives and to the injured suffering from the tragedy of the Beirut explosion.

We express our deep condolences, and solidarity to all those who have local families and, in the UK, caught up in this tragedy, and express anxiety for those who have also lost their homes and livelihoods.

We salute all those helping to find, caring for and offering their homes to survivors and note the messages of support sent by the Queen, international governments, agencies, from countries bordering Lebanon, and faith organisations who have all offered immediate assistance in Lebanon’s time of need.

Signed jointly on Behalf of the BMFF Executive
Esmond Rosen President of Barnet Multi Faith Forum
Trevor Alexander Chair of the Barnet Multi faith Forum

…it feel good to be back !! As one worshiper put it.

I am a trustee and a coordinator at Hendon Mosque. Let me put something into perspective under lockdown everyone has been waiting for the shops, restaurants, gyms and other places to open up. You can’t help but notice the queues outside  places like TK Max, Waitrose, Sainsbury’s etc and even some stores inside Brent Cross Shopping centre.
However, but maybe Very few will have noticed the somewhat relatively low key smaller queues that have began forming outside our places of worship, especially outside our Hendon Mosque. For those who religion or faith is not retail I can’t begin to explain to you all the look of joy on people’s faces attending our mosque.
For us as volunteers and custodians of the mosque, we have never felt so much happiness in opening our doors wide for the first time since lockdown started. There has  been a huge amount of behind- the-scene effort & work and thinking that has been needed to take place before we reached the decision of opening our doors. But I can tell you this much …it has been well worth it !!!

I think when we closed we never thought it would be so long before we would have to reopen. And we never thought that we would have to change so radically our whole approach.

There is immense sadness as well in opening our doors as we are missing congregation members who are no longer with us in this world today as a result of Covid.

Unlike some other faiths our mosques are predominantly about group worship/prayers. We have had to manage this very very carefully and we have had to introduce a booking system in place for our large congregational prayers. Of course like anything new when first been introduced we too have teething problems we have technical hitches and we have human resource issues. But we’ve managed!!
We have managed the challenges as well as the expectation from the community to deliver and we will continue to resume congregational prayers in the safest possible environment in which we can do this.

I would like to take this opportunity to wish everyone a very heartfelt warm Eid Mubarak celebration message and assure you all that as trustees we take our responsibilities very seriously of the safety of everyone who comes and walks through our doors.

Eid Mubarak

Nayim Kadri

Government funding to improve the physical security of places of worship in England and Wales.

The Home Office is providing a total of £3.2 million in grant funding this year to help places of worship who feel they are vulnerable to hate crime to install more secure gates, locks, alarms and CCTV in order to deter and prevent hate crime attacks.

Places of worship in England and Wales, including churches, gurdwaras, mosques, temples and associated faith community centres, can apply for grants of up to £56,000 per place of worship.

The funding can cover the costs of up to three security measures from the following list:

• CCTV (fixed cameras, not pan-tilt cameras)
• Fencing and/or railings (no more than 2.1m high)
• Manually operated pedestrian and vehicle gates
• Automated vehicle gates
• Security doors and locks
• Reinforcing single glazed windows (with anti-shatter film or bars/grilles)
• Intruder alarms
• Access control (fob or keypad)
• Video intercom systems
• Lighting (building mounted)

The funding only covers the provision and installation of these security measures. It does not cover other associated costs such as licensing and planning permission, or ongoing costs such as charges for annual service, maintenance and monitoring.

The deadline for applications is 23:59 on 9 August 2020.

For further information on how to obtain this grant locally, please contact the following:

1. Esotec Limited
   Home Office
   Southmead Industrial Estate
   Unit 13 Moorbrook Park
   Didcot
   OX11 7HP
   Email: pow_sfs_2020@esotec.co.uk

See the full Govt website information here