Student Perspective: Three PVS students organize an all-girls gala

Pleasant View School hosted its first ever all-girls gala on Feb. 22 and three students made it possible. "The halal trio," Marifa Siddeque, Haneen Jaber and Ayat Ayesh, talk about why they decided to organize the gala.

There aren't many events that are just for girls or that represent girls, so we wanted to do something for the girls in our school. We wanted everyone to come together, have fun and be comfortable with each other.

Food, pictures and dressing up was the best part of the night. The theme of the gala was a night under the stars. Muslim girls from all over Memphis from freshmans to seniors were invited to be a part of the night.

It was a way for Muslims girls to participate in part of the “high school experience” while keeping their identity. The biggest dance in high school is prom, and because Muslim girls cannot be a part of that we wanted to make our gala a perfect environment for them to have a good time.

We had to decorate the day of because we couldn’t decorate any other day which was pretty stressful. We all came early the day of the gala to set up.

We had a lot of help from other people such as Taqwa, Ahmed, Tasneem, Noor, Khatib, Jenna, Nasir, Hannan, Ayah, Sarah and many others. Without them, we would’ve been worrying so much!

At first, things were not going as planned. Some of our decorations kept falling. We got lights that were 300 feet and they did not work. We struggled to cover the walls to make the gym look nicer.

These things stressed us out but then at the end we all worked together to help each other which relieved the stress. Setting up was so much fun and created great memories. We all worked hard together as a family to make the night a memorable one.

After we finished setting up, we all got very excited because everything looked so beautiful. After a while, people began arriving and we heard many comments about how the gym looked nice and how they weren’t expecting it to look that good.

All the girls looked so beautiful that night and everyone was smiling. Together, everyone had fun. We all laughed, danced and cheered for each other. Everyone was complimenting each other.

We taught each other new dances such as a dabke. Even if there was someone one who didn’t know a dance, they still had fun learning with everyone.

It was a great night that brought all the girls together and we hope nights like our gala can happen every year. The gala brought us all closer to each other. May Allah bless these girls and allow girls to have stronger representation and continue to come together as one, ameen!

Thanks to everyone who came and we hope you enjoyed yourselves!