"There were 15 of us sitting in Nando's tucking into our food and shrieking with laughter - all wearing hijabs (headscarfs). You could see people staring. I wondered what they thought of us. But there is nowhere in the Koran that says you can't have fun," she points out.
And fun is a key agenda where her troop is concerned. "Asian kids don't always get the chance to take part in outdoor activities such as climbing or canoeing, or to just feel that the countryside can belong to them," says Ashan. "I think it's very important they can be part of that scene."
The Markfield Muslim Guides are affiliated to the UK Guide movement but adhere to their own set of Islamic principles. "We can teach morals and ethics in a relaxed setting," says Ashan, who would have no problem with a mixed troop. "We'd love it if someone from a different religion joined us. We're a real mixed bag of cultures anyway: we've got Irish, Jamaican, Algerian and Pakistani."
She says being of the same religion helps them. "After September 11, a lot of them felt unfairly treated at school," she adds. "We were able to talk it all through. During the Iraq conflict, we made a big banner and took the girls to the anti-war march in London. They were all really keen, but I don't think any of them would have had the confidence to go alone."
Islam is the UK's fastest-growing religion. There are an estimated 1.6 million Muslims living here, ranks that are being swelled by surprising numbers of White British converts - around 35,000 to 40,000 in total. It's also the youngest. According to the 2002 census, 54 per cent of the Muslim population is under the age of 25, compared with around 20 per cent of the indigenous White population.
But social problems are growing: Muslims are five times more likely to be in prison or suffer from a mental illness.
Batoul Tuma was born an Irish Catholic, but since converting to Islam she has worked at the Islamic Foundation in Leicestershire. "UK Muslims have been ghettoised for so long," she says. "They've also stuck their head in the sand when it comes to young people's problems."
She says religious leaders have been slow to accept mainstream ideas about youth work: "Our community has traditionally been very wary of what went on inside the mainstream youth centre: seeing dark evil things. OK, so things like the Scout movement were originally Christian, but that's hardly surprising because it was set up when the majority of the UK was Christian."
Batoul wishes mosque-based community workers would stop trying to "reinvent the wheel" and take advantage of the resources already out there. She believes much of the work that was taking place in mosques or Islamic cultural centres "was about containing kids, giving them a snooker table and thinking that would keep them off the streets and in the mosque".
She says: "It was 20 years behind modern youth work ideas, but things are getting better. Now we've got some great third-generation community workers working with fifth-generation kids doing some brilliant work."
Funding frustrations
She is annoyed that issues such as the segregation of boys and girls can hamper Muslim youth work. "It's hard to get funding for and frankly that's not surprising. Nothing polarises the Muslim community more than segregation."
For Batoul it is a cultural, not religious, issue - and doesn't need to happen. Shiban Akbhar disagrees. She took over the North London Muslim Community Centre in June with a brief to boost youth activities. The Hackney-based centre began life as a boys' cricket club in a Christian church hall 20 years ago. Today it is thriving, with a Sure Start project, mental health project, pensioners' luncheon club and four different cricket teams.
It has one full-time and three part-time workers - all male - and deals with around 50 young men a day. Girls only get to use the snooker tables and other facilities on a Sunday. "We hardly do anything for girls," admits Akbhar.
But she has already met with hostility from funders. She recently applied for a 500 Single Regeneration Budget (SRB) grant and was asked why she wanted to segregate boys and girls. "They just don't understand and it is difficult to explain," she says. "We're accused of not addressing social cohesion if we separate them. This is supposed to be a multicultural country, but we are still expected to fit the same criteria as everyone else. If we are to be truly multicultural, you can't expect us to fit under a single umbrella. If I applied for a girls-only grant on the basis of different interests no-one would mind, but whenever you mention religion it's a different story."
But for some young Muslims, already alienated from the mainstream, the tight-knit community groups where everyone knows your family aren't the answer either.
Little understanding
Yasmina, 15, was facing problems after starting college, and her family wouldn't let her stay for evening lectures. "The tutors were completely unsympathetic and told me if I didn't go I'd get kicked off," she says. "I tried the college counselling service. All they did was give me a list of numbers for local Muslim organisations. One was a women's group run by my aunt. I could hardly call to moan about my own family could I?" The pressure became too much and Yasmina quit her course. "I'd have loved to find a place where it wasn't all about sex and snogging, but not so restrictive either," she says. "It didn't exist for me."
There is no one major body dealing with Muslim young people in the UK.
And of the various youth organisations that do exist, the vast majority deal exclusively with boys and young men. Twenty-four-year-old Junaid Ahmed is president of the Young Muslims Organisation. Affiliated to the Muslim Council of Britain, the group has around 500 male members aged between 16 and 25. It organises conferences, residentials and training camps, as well as running the Muslim student awards. "It's important for Muslims not to be isolated, but at the same time it's good to operate in a comfort zone," says Ahmed. "You can't compromise with our religion and things that are sensitive to us - segregation for one - don't affect normal youth."
He's well aware though of how that lack of understanding can lead to prejudice. "In the current political climate, young Muslims like us are increasingly seen as a threat to mainstream society," he says. "We'll do anything we can to help preserve our Islamic identity, but at the same time helping people to become good citizens."
CASE STUDY - MARKFIELD MUSLIM GUIDES
Rochelle's story
"I'm a normal teenage girl. I go out with my friends, make a noise, gossip and everything. But I'm also a proud Muslim," says 14-year-old Rochelle Wallis. Part British, part Jamaican, Rochelle converted to Islam after her mother did two years ago. "She didn't make me. I just fell in love with it. I was like, 'Mum, am I old enough to do it now?'" Muslim Guides offers a chance for Rochelle to learn more about her new religion, while taking part in traditional Guiding activities. "I could go to a normal youth club but it might be tricky," she says. "Boys get a bit hormonal at our age. Also, people ask about the hijab (the traditional headscarf).
Most people are curious, not nasty. But you don't always want to be explaining yourself when you're relaxing. People immediately think I must be oppressed, but that's not my Islam.
"If White Christian kids go to church they can get teased. I've never had that because people expect Muslims to go to mosque and do religious things. Leicester is pretty multicultural, so I've not had problems."
"People immediately think I must be oppressed, but that's not my Islam" CASE STUDY - MUSLIM YOUTH HELPLINE
Since setting up last December, the Muslim Youth Helpline has helped more than 500 young Muslims deal with a range of problems from mental health and drugs to sexuality. Fourteen volunteer counsellors, all aged between 14 and 25, offer a telephone counselling service on any topic. But as administrator Yasser Madani explains, balancing issues such as sexuality within a religious ethic can be tricky.
"The service works on Islamic principles, but as counsellors we can't be judgmental in any way," he says. "For example, we would not and could not condone homosexual behaviour on a personal level, but we wouldn't judge someone who came to us with that problem."
Open-minded approach
The suggestion that someone having gay thoughts could stop it by focusing on religion could be regarded by non-Muslim or secular workers as at best naive, at worst harmful. But for the Muslim Youth Helpline those kind of ethics are a daily balancing act. So what might a counsellor say to a pregnant 15-year-old girl wanting the telephone number for an abortion clinic? "It's not happened yet, so we don't have a specific policy on it," says Madani. "It would be down to the individual counsellor whether or not to give it." For a vulnerable 15-year-old plucking up the courage to make one call, getting the right response first time is crucial, but as Madani points out, even discussing topics such as abortion and homosexuality in a religious environment is pushing boundaries. "If we had older counsellors they probably wouldn't even be willing to discuss homosexuality," he says. "It would be a total taboo. We're young and more open-minded."
Muslim Youth Helpline admin 020 8903 7534 Helpline 020 8795 5321. The helpline is open Saturday 10am-10pm and Tuesday 6-9pm.
