A long-planned Muslim chaplaincy service for the University of Otago will be launched today.
Two chaplains are taking up part-time, voluntary roles providing pastoral care and spiritual support to students — retired political lecturer Dr Najib Lafraie, a former Afghanistan foreign minister who fled the Taleban, and Salmah Kassim, a former diplomatic officer at the Malaysian High Commission in Wellington.
The service also covers Otago Polytechnic. Lafraie and Kassim join a team of 10 chaplains.
University chaplain the Rev Greg Hughson said Muslim chaplaincies had been established in universities worldwide in the past 20 years or so.
"It's taken some time to work between the various parties involved, but we are delighted to expand the chaplaincy service from two to three partners, expanding it from interdenominational and Catholic Christian to include Muslim chaplaincy," Hughson said. "In working towards establishing Muslim chaplaincy here at Otago over many years, we were not to know how necessary and important this would be, given the terrorist attacks on 15 March."
