Strong faith. Strong minds. Strong future.
The GSIS Youth Program equips young Muslims with spiritual knowledge, leadership skills, and meaningful community engagement. Our goal is not to entertain young people. It is to prepare them to lead.
This is a program, not an evening to fill. It has a curriculum, a calendar, and a written safeguarding policy. A parent or guardian signs a young person up, parents know what is being taught, and you can ask us anything before your child attends a single session.
Confident Muslim youth, built on purpose.
To build confident Muslim youth who are spiritually grounded, intellectually curious, and socially strong. Those three words decide everything else on this page: what gets taught, who is allowed in the room, and how a year is planned.
Spiritually grounded
They know their deen, they pray, and they can say why they pray. Salah is taught as a habit rather than as a subject, and the life of the Prophet, peace be upon him, is taught as a life rather than as a timeline of dates.
Intellectually curious
The hard questions get asked here first, and they get honest answers. A young Muslim who cannot ask about doubt, identity, or something they read online will not stop asking. They will simply ask somewhere else.
Socially strong
They stand confidently among their peers instead of apart from them. Friendship built inside the masjid is what holds a young person steady everywhere else, and it is the reason they keep coming back at sixteen.
Three stages, one path.
A six year old and a sixteen year old do not need the same room. Each group has its own track, its own material, and its own pace, and each track hands the young person forward to the next one rather than dropping them at the door.
Foundations
The years where habits form and where Islam should feel warm rather than heavy. Sessions are short, hands-on, and built around story.
- Story based seerah, told as a life a child can picture rather than a list of battles
- Salah basics, taught by doing, practiced together, and sent home as a routine parents can keep going
- Islamic crafts they make with their hands and take home the same day
- Short Quran and dua memorization in pieces small enough to actually finish
Handoff. A child leaves Foundations able to pray, knowing the story of the Prophet, peace be upon him, and expecting the masjid to be a good place to be.
Identity Formation
The years where a Muslim child first notices they are different, and where most of the pressure arrives. This track meets that head on instead of waiting it out.
- Muslim identity: who you are before anybody else tells you who you are
- Social media boundaries, including what to do about what they have already seen
- Peer pressure workshops, rehearsed out loud in the room rather than lectured about
- Confidence and character, so that saying no does not cost a young person their friends
Handoff. The aim is a young Muslim who is not embarrassed, not isolated, and not caught off guard by anything the next four years brings.
Leadership Track
The years where a young Muslim either becomes part of this masjid or quietly drifts out of it. This track gives them a real job to do and adults who take them seriously.
- Mentorship training, so the older youth carry the younger ones and learn by teaching
- Career guidance from Muslims in this community who are already doing the work
- College prep sessions, including how to stay practicing once they are living on a campus
- Community service hours, tracked and documented for school and college applications
Handoff. This track ends with a young adult who has led something real, and who has a reason to walk back through these doors at twenty five.
Four quarters, four themes.
The program runs on a themed calendar rather than a scatter of one-off events. Every quarter carries a single theme, and the halaqahs, the workshops, the service projects, and the social nights in that quarter all pull in the same direction.
Identity
Who we are, and why that question comes before every other one. Identity workshops run in all three age groups at three different depths, so a nine year old and a seventeen year old are working on the same theme in their own language.
Character
How a Muslim carries themselves when nobody is watching. Honesty, temper, manners with parents, keeping a promise, and how to apologize properly and mean it. Character is the quarter families tend to notice at home.
Leadership
Stepping forward, taking responsibility, and serving first. This is the quarter with the most youth run sessions, the summer service projects, the beach cleanups, and the camping trip that older youth help plan.
Ramadan Readiness
Arriving at Ramadan prepared rather than surprised. Fasting practice, night prayer, the Ramadan service team, and a short personal plan each young person writes themselves and brings home to their family.
Four pillars that run through every quarter.
The theme changes four times a year. These four do not. Every young person in the program touches all four, because a youth program that runs only one of them produces either a bored teenager or an unserious one.
Faith and Identity
The spine of the program. This is the part that is never canceled to make room for something else.
- A monthly youth halaqah, run separately for each age group
- Open question and answer sessions where nothing is too basic and nothing is off limits
- Identity workshops tied to the theme of the current quarter
- Support for convert youth, including teenagers whose family did not accept Islam with them. Parents new to Islam themselves can join the New Convert Program alongside it
Leadership and Skills
Skills a young Muslim can use on Monday morning, taught by people who use them for a living.
- Public speaking workshops that end with every young person actually speaking, not just watching
- Event planning, where the youth run a real masjid event from the first meeting to the last chair stacked
- Service projects the youth choose, plan, and lead themselves
- An introduction to business and entrepreneurship, taught by Muslim business owners in this community
Social and Recreation
The reason they come back. Every one of these is supervised under the same safeguarding rules as everything else.
- Sports nights
- Game nights
- Beach cleanups along the Grand Strand
- Camping trips, run with the extra overnight consent and supervision rules that come with them
Service and Responsibility
Where a young person stops being a guest at the masjid and starts being one of the people who keeps it running.
- Community volunteering through the year, including alongside adult teams
- The Ramadan service team, which handles iftar setup and cleanup night after night
- Masjid maintenance days, so the youth take care of the building they pray in
Faith and Identity is the spine. Leadership and Skills is what parents notice first. Social and Recreation is why a teenager agrees to come. Service and Responsibility is what turns all of it into something the whole community can feel on a Friday.
How we keep your child safe.
Parents ask about this before they ask about anything else, and they are right to. Nothing below is an aspiration. These are the rules the program runs on, and a volunteer who will not follow them does not work with our youth.
Youth volunteer screening
Every adult and every older youth volunteer is screened before they are placed with a group. Screening covers who they are, why they want the role, and references that we actually call.
Background checks
Background checks are run on the adults in the program. This is not a formality, and it is not waived for someone well known and well liked in the community.
The two-adult rule
No youth activity runs with a single adult present. Two screened adults are in the room, on the field, and on the trip, every single time. The two adult rule is not set aside for convenience or for a short session.
Clear communication guidelines
Volunteers contact youth through channels a parent can see, in writing, with a parent included. No private one to one messaging, no unsupervised rides, and no meetings at anyone’s home.
Parent consent forms
A signed parent or guardian consent form is on file for every activity, with a separate form for anything off site or overnight. Emergency contact, medical, and allergy details are collected with it.
One person accountable
The youth program coordinator owns these rules, keeps the screening records, and answers to the imam and the board for them. You always have a name to ask, not a policy to read.
If something ever concerns you, say so early. Speak to the youth program coordinator or to the imam directly. We would far rather hear a concern that turns out to be nothing than hear a real one late.
The things families ask before they sign up.
Who can join?
Does my child have to attend everything?
My child is the only Muslim at their school. Is this the right place?
We recently became Muslim. Can my teenager join?
How do I sign my child up?
Can I help?
One form, filled in by a parent.
A parent or guardian signs a young person up. Tell us about your child and we will follow up with the meeting times for their age group, the plan for the current quarter, and the consent forms. If you would rather talk to someone first, call the masjid and skip the form entirely.
Youth Program interest, parent form
The form asks for your name and how to reach you, your children’s first names and their age range, what they are most interested in, and anything you want us to know about them before they walk in. It takes about two minutes.
Privacy note: what you write here is used only to place your child in the right age group and to contact you about the program. It is never shared publicly, never sold, and never posted anywhere. The youth program coordinator and the imam are the only people who see it.
A youth program is only as strong as the adults who show up for it.
Every halaqah, every service project, and every camping trip on this page rests on volunteers from this community. There are two ways to carry it, and both matter.
Volunteer as a youth mentor
Youth mentoring is a distinct role at GSIS with its own screening, its own training, and its own boundaries, and it is separate from the convert program’s mentors. If you can give a few hours a month and you still remember what being fifteen felt like, we want to hear from you. Send a note through Contact Us saying you are interested in youth mentoring. The coordinator will walk you through screening, the communication guidelines, and the two-adult rule before you are ever placed with a group.
Contact us about youth mentoringOther ways to carry it
Not everyone has the hours to mentor, and the program still needs you. Coach a sports night. Teach one session in your trade for the entrepreneurship block. Drive for a service project. Cook for the camping trip. Sponsor the supplies the Ramadan service team runs through every night of the month. Tell us what you can give and we will find where it fits.
Support the programMost families here do both.
The Weekend Qur’an and Arabic School is where your child learns to read the Book. The Youth Program is where they learn to live by it. The two are built to sit side by side, and the calendars are set so that they do not collide.
Questions first? Call (843) 902-2808 or email [email protected]. If you have never been inside the masjid before, New Here? walks through a first visit step by step.