Muslim Youth Helpline

Muslim Youth Helpline is a national award winning charity that provides free and confidential faith and culturally sensitive support services targeted at vulnerable young people in the UK.

MYH was founded in August 2001 by young people to respond to the social problems endured by Muslim youth in the UK.

Our core service is a free and confidential Helpline, available nationally via the telephone, email, live chat text and letters. The service uses male and female volunteers trained in basic counselling skills to respond to client enquiries on any issue.

MYH also runs an annual Prison Campaign that sends Eid cards and messages of support to Muslims in prison during Ramadan. We encourage them to contact the Helpline for support via the phone and letter writing. We reach out to an average of 3,000 male and female prisoners each year.

MYH puts young people at the heart of its services and actively recruits young people from the Muslim community to be at the forefront of service delivery. The majority of our Helpline workers are under the age of 28 years and are drawn from across the ethnically diverse Muslim communities of the UK.

By omitting the generation gap and the cultural restrictions of an adult-run service, we are able to build the trust of young people and deal effectively with the social pressures that young people from the Muslim community have never before been able to reveal.

Whilst the issues MYH deals with are no different from most other helplines in the UK, MYH is able to provide its clients with faith and culturally sensitive support – something which mainstream services are still unable to provide. By providing safe spaces in which we listen, we are breaking the taboos of silence that prevent young Muslims from talking about their problems which makes them more acute. Young people from all backgrounds contact the Helpline and we never turn anyone away.

Since 2005 MYH has also produced a number of reports on the issues that young people get in touch with us about. These can be found on our website at http://www.myh.org.uk/content/research

MYH does not propagate any religious or political beliefs and seeks only to provide relief to and improve the social condition of vulnerable young people in the UK.

Our Values

MYH is a Muslim led organisation that is based on the Islamic values of compassion, non-judgment and tolerance.

We draw our inspiration from the example of the Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) who never turned away anyone who came to him with their problems and who said:

'The best of actions are to gladden the heart of a human, to feed the hungry, to help the afflicted, to lighten sorrow and to remove the wrongs from the oppressed'. Prophet Muhammad (pbuh)

We believe the values of compassion, empathy and service to others in their hour of need are at the core of our faith as Muslims and embody the heart and spirit of Islam.