LE MONDE (France)
Baddre-Eddine Bentaïb, a French Muslim from the city of Orléans, has set up a website mapping and providing information on mosques throughout France. Now, he is embarking on a 'Ramadan road trip' that will take him around the country.
When travelling around France for his work, Bentaïb discovered there was no easy way of finding a place of worship, he tells Le Monde, and so his idea, trouvetamosquee.fr (Find Your Mosque), was born.
Inspired by two Americans who visited a different mosque each day in New York for the thirty days of Ramadan, Bentaïb will travel from mosque to mosque providing videos and commentaries on his visits.
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Other than providing essential information on mosques, Bentaïb seeks to "de-stigmatize" Islam in France: "I noticed that places of worship generally don't communicate via the Internet and because of this, when I would type in the word 'mosque' the majority of sites would be Islamophobic," says Bentaïb.
He says he has received a positive response from imams and hopes the website will be a useful resource in helping them to communicate with one another.
