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Muslim Aid supports projects in 74 countries: Hamid
SHR Jahfery
Islamabad—Head of Muslim Aid overseas Hamid Azad says his
organisation has been providing services for last two decades,
Muslim aid projects span urban as well as rural areas of Pakistan
along with the earthquake affected areas.
He said this while addressing a press conference here Wednesday. He
said Muslim Aid supports projects in 74 countries spanning Africa,
Asia, Australia and Europe. By responding quickly to emergencies,
Muslim Aid provides relief to the victims of natural disasters, war
and famine.
He said we are struggling to contribute towards the common
Millennium Development Goals by addressing the issues of integrated
development and to make poverty a history. Muslim Aid keeps the
integrated approach concentrates on integrated programmes for
comprehensive solutions.
Azad said, in order to improve the state of Human Development and
indigenous capacity building we are providing services to the
suffering humanity. We are establishing skills development training
centres, schools and latest computer and science labs,” he added.
He observed that in Pakistan, lack of access to credit, training in
income-generating activities, basic social services and
infrastructure are critical factors behind the persistence of
substantial poverty, especially in under-served rural and urban
areas.
Muslim Aid projects include Micro credit (small interest free
loans), Women skills development centres or Child Development
programs Rainbow Family (Orphans Care) target the population of the
poor rural and urban communities, with specific emphasis being
placed on empowerment of women.
Muslim Aid focuses on improving the lives of women by ensuring that
community projects and loans responding to their priorities, and
designed with their participation, take precedence over others. In
this sense, Rato Dero, Sind or Islamnagar, Bagh, AJK a gravely hit
earthquake area are no exception, the small villages in Sind and
Kashmir, as the majority of the women in the villages are, direct or
indirect, beneficiaries of the program.
Highlighting the achievements of Muslim Aid he said that
organisation Aid has also enhanced public awareness through
community participation. The experiment was so successful that this
has been running without any problem, and the communities are
willingly contributing to the infrastructure and training programs
of Muslim Aid.
“We are contributing towards the MDGs by bridging gap between the
haves and have nots through poverty alleviation by providing
interest free micro credit services, which aims at making
individuals capable of living an independent self sustainable life”,
he said.
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