Members from the Muslim Students’ Association gathered for a mental health seminar led by PhD Candidate Ihsan Rodriguez following the deaths in Palestine. Credit: Mariam Abaza | Lantern Reporter
The impact of a war across an ocean has made its way to campus, as shown in the many protests and demonstrations held since Oct. 7.
The Muslim Students’ Association, which usually functions as a mosque on campus, has introduced programming to support the mental health of students affected by the Israel-Hamas war. According to Ihsan Rodriguez, a clinical psychology doctoral candidate at Ohio State and trainee at Ohio State’s Psychological Services Center, counseling facilities have experienced an influx of Muslim students looking for mental health resources since the start of the war.
Rodriguez led an event for MSA on Wednesday meant to help students manage “collective trauma in the wake of the occupation in Palestine,” according to the association’s Instagram. The workshop offered an opportunity for those looking for such resources to engage in Islamic prayers, practical skills to reframe thinking and strategies for managing grief symptoms.
“It was clear that the students in attendance had a lot of pain, some of which was reported to be a result of the silence they experience in their classrooms,” Rodriguez said.
Lectures like Rodriguez’s offered a sense of community for students to discuss how they have been feeling, as well as offer potential solutions to the pain of their peers.
Angelina Atieh, a fourth-year in biomedical science, said it’s been increasingly difficult to go about her day as she draws a connection between her classes teaching the necessity to protect human lives while bombs are dropped across the world.
A Palestinian-American, Atieh has organized several protests, saying she’s unable to separate herself from the war despite recommendations to step back from social media and the news.
“It is very insensitive to suggest [stepping away] because our identity, our cause, is wrapped up in this,” Atieh said.
Jamil Aboushaar, a third-year in neuroscience and the association’s outreach chair, said MSA provides a space for students to heal and connect with others feeling the same impact they feel.
“A lot of our members have family members and loved ones who have suffered as a result of what’s going on in Gaza,” Aboushaar said. “When one part of our community is ailing, the entire community feels the pain and comes together to relieve and support our brothers and sisters. MSA provides the space for that support to happen, and it is a critical part of many Muslim students’ lives on campus.”
This fits into MSA’s goal to foster a sense of community on campus through spiritual and social programming, according to the clubs’ members. This sense of community is especially heightened recently as the group unifies with other organizations like the Palestinian Women’s Association to create this new programming catered toward mental health.
This, matched with funneling frustration into demonstrations, has allowed students like Atieh to carry on in the midst of the war.
