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Food parcels and handouts offer temporary respite from hunger, but unless people are given the means to lift themselves out of destitution, the aid will eventually run out leaving only dependency.
Women bear a disproportionate burden of the world’s poverty and are more likely to lack the basic necessities of life such as clean water, food and adequate shelter.
In many communities, women generally face the greatest difficulties in finding work. Typically, when they are widowed or left abandoned with several children they have no skills to earn an income, leaving them vulnerable, with little or no protection and way of supporting their families.
Islamic Relief is empowering these women by providing a means for them to find their own route out of poverty, through the provision of micro-credit loans.
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Vocational training programmes (computer classes, tailoring, making handicrafts etc.)
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Islamic Microfinance; Interest-free loans to start small businesses.
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Widows welfare (training and microfinance).
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Distribution of livestock.
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Promoting agriculture: distributing seeds and fertiliser, improving irrigation.
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Strengthening community governance.
Loans usually come with problems for impoverished communities when they need to be paid back but the microcredit programme has seen 98% of the loans repaid, showing the difference that they have made to people’s lives. This is when the money is then recycled; once repaid by one person, the money is then loaned out to another person, and then another and then another... and on it goes, empowering family after family.
For examples of how Islamic Relief is empowering women to find their own route out of poverty, please click below:
Mali: Cereal bank
Pakistan: Community organisations
£60 can buy cloth and materials to support a woman with her tailoring business
£300 can purchase animals to transport goods to the nearest market, making it easier to sell
£500 can buy farming equipment to help a family start a business selling vegetables |