
By: Jasmin Ghandour
Source: https://islamic-relief.com.au/
Only a few days ago, I read a Facebook post by our friends at Islamic Relief Palestine that reminded me how easy it really is to forget how fortunate we are.
With some of us having so much to do in what seems like so little time, we sometimes find it difficult to take a moment to appreciate the things in our lives that we’re most thankful for like the people that make you smile, our homes, the food on our table, living in a country where we can execute our right to an education, our jobs and of course the generous supporters that make our life changing work possible.
When you help Islamic Relief deliver aid to people in dire need of assistance, your contribution means more than you think it does.
Your contribution is opportunity for the people we’re serving. It restores their hope, dignity, independence (to name a few) and helps to give them the very things that we sometimes forget to appreciate.
So how significant is the difference that your contribution helps us to achieve?
1. When Tahirun’s husband died, she and her children were kicked out of their home, forced to beg on the streets. If they were lucky, they got a handful of rice; often, they survived on leaves, drinking from the same water as stray dogs.
We trained Tahirun in farming, and #Alhamdulillah now she has her own field of crops, along with several other women supported by Islamic Relief.
For people like Tahirun in Bangladesh, being trained in farming skills means that she no longer has to sleep below a tree in the streets and beg for a handful of rice. She is delighted to be able to give to others now instead of begging: “by Allah’s grace, my life has changed. I don’t ask for charity anymore; now people take rice from me.” You’ve helped restore Tahirun’s dignity.
She can now work using the skills that she’s learnt to feed herself and others.
2. In the poverty stricken areas of rural Mali, your contribution helped empower a group of women, allowing Islamic Relief to help them start a small business that now employs over 70 women and produces an ingredient that is now being imported by a cosmetics company in Paris! The training and support your contribution helped provide has given them independence, enabling them to support the entire community.
3. Abdul Sattar lives in Afghanistan a country where millions of people don’t have enough food to eat or even earn an income.
Your contribution has given father of eight, Abdul Sattar, a livelihood. Islamic Relief’s project provided Abdul Sattar and 6,000 other people with the necessary tools and agricultural training they needed to earn enough to provide a decent living to feed themselves and their families.
4. The 1,300 sponsored orphans in Yemen, who have been through so much having dealt with tragic loss and suffering, were able to enjoy their childhood on a fun day organized by Islamic Relief – made possible by YOU.
5. In refugee camps in Darfur, Sudan, where over half the population cannot read or write and only 54 percent of children enrol in school, children are forced to miss out on an education so they can work to earn money to support their families. Their parents wish they could give their children a chance at a brighter future, but how can they afford to feed them if they attend school? How will they earn a living enough to sustain the entire family?
Education is something that no child should have to sacrifice and Islamic Relief is making sure that thousands of children and parents around the world no longer need to make that choice, including over a thousand children in Darfur…
And in Palestine, more than 5,500 children are benefiting from YOUR contributions that have helped Islamic Relief support education programs!
Islamic Relief has been able to rehabilitate schools, train teachers and provide them with the tools they need to help these children achieve their goals, giving them hope for a brighter future!
6. Mr Issa Khalil Abu Skyna is a Palestinian refugee living in refugee camp in Saida-Mieh, Lebanon. With four children to support, Issa took a job driving a truck earning very very little, $265 USD, which does not cover their costs of living.
So you see, your contribution is not just another dollar or an hour or a minute. Your contribution is bringing joy to so many people around the world, people that are exactly like you and I, just different circumstances.
Before I started working at Islamic Relief Australia, my answer to the question, “Do you enjoy what you do?” changed every day, like the weather.
However today I feel different. I feel something when I look into the faces of the people we serve. I see the need. I see the difference we make. I see things that I never would’ve noticed before.
If I meet the people who asked me that question now, I would tell them how extraordinary it is to go home at the end of each day appreciating all of the things I’m thankful for and to remember that there are thousands of you with such big hearts – that help make these changes possible.
Then I’d ask them the same question “Do YOU enjoy what you do?”
So trust me, your contribution is not just another dollar.
Your continued support can impact every aspect of their life. Please give today.