Muslim’s Marathon
After he ran two half marathons in Canada, I had the opportunity to communicate with Muslim and ask him a few questions. Please see our discussion below 
Sukaina - Tell me a bit about yourself?
Muslim – Well I’m 30, am African born (probably why I’ve developed a passion for running) but British bred. I have spent most of my summers as a youth in Canada visiting my grandparents and cousins, who I am very close to. I have grown very fond of Canada and try my best to visit every year; it’s like my home away from home. To sum up I’m just an average guy trying to help where he can.
Sukaina – Why did you choose Smile?
Muslim – Why not!?… A few people have asked me the same question, but mainly for the reason that Smile is a Canadian-based organization and not a British one!
You hear people say “that charity should start at home” and as I mentioned Canada is my home away from home, so why not!?
This now brings me to answering the question, why did I choose Smile? Well someone introduced me to Smile in a mass e-mail a few years back to which I was party to. This briefly outlined the work of Smile and attached to this was a link to the Smile website. My inquisitive nature took hold and I started to browse the site. It was inspiring to read and see the work that Smile is doing for the community. Not just for children with disabilities but for their families and doing this whilst the organization is still in its infancy. Again inspiring! I wanted to do something to help, whoever at the time I couldn’t see what I could do, especially living so many miles away. Saying this, what always stuck in my head was one of the article on the site, ‘The Journey’. It was very touching and moving to read and I never forgot it. It wasn’t until I actually had the opportunity to meet Mohammad on a visit to Canada in 2010, though brief, that I started to remember the article and truly became inspired. Mohammad was the reason why I chose Smile
Prior to coming to Canada that summer I had already entered into the 2010 Birmingham Half Marathon with my brothers Shabar & Shabir. So that summer after meeting Mohammed I had the idea incepted into my head, that I wanted to run and raise money for Smile and their cause. Whoever being that the 2010 Birmingham half-marathon was my 1st ever attempt at running a distance of 13.1 miles, I used this as a platform to ensure I could do the run and didn’t want to let anyone down. History would go on to dictate (:p) that I ran the 2010 Birmingham Half Marathon in 2 hours 11 seconds.
