News article

2008 Joint LFT – IRAC Sponsorship of 209 Iraqi and Afghani orphans in Iran
12/02/2009

The Lady Fatemah (a.s.) Charitable Trust
September Lodge, Village way, Little Chalfont Buckinghamshire HP7 9PU
February 2009

LFT has requested IRAC to accept new applications and intends to sponsor a total of 300 orphans. It costs only 15 GBP to cover the basic expenses of an orphan. Please, give these children a chance in life with your donation.
Following the recommendation of the Holy Prophet (pbuh), many Muslim charitable organizations engage in orphan sponsorship programs. The aim of an orphan sponsorship program should be to try and replace the orphan’s absent father – although of course this is never really possible. A father’s most important role is to guide his children so that they can develop their abilities and become useful members of the community. Paying their expenses is only of secondary importance. As we all know, a good education is the best foundation a child can receive and a good father sends his children to school, regardless of how difficult it may be to do that. In the joint IRAC-LFT orphan sponsorship program, great emphasis is therefore based on school attendance and IRAC’s staff members try their best to encourage all benefiting orphans to attend school and study diligently.
The sponsorship program has two branches, one for orphans under fifteen years of age (“Orphan Program”) and one for orphans who are more than fifteen years old (“Support Program”). In the Orphan Program, school attendance and performance is monitored but is not a condition for receiving assistance. IRAC’s staff members do their best to convince mothers that their children should study, and offer assistance to make that possible, but in the end the decision lies with the mothers and IRAC cannot force them to send their children to school. In the Support Program, however, the supported children and young adults are required to either attend school or university or learn a marketable skill. Their studies and training are closely supervised as this program is designed to lead young adults into financial independence. Only a very limited number of cases were accepted for long-term assistance due to the special situation of the applicants.
Under the Orphan Program, 106 children were sponsored with monthly 10 GBP during 2008. The composition of this group of beneficiaries was as follows:

Orphan statistics 2008
Gender		Age group			Education
M	F	< 6	6 to 11	11 to 15	Attend school	Attend literacy class	Under age	Retarded	Dropped out	Legal problems	Other
60	46	9	50	47	73	1	14	3	3	9	3
106		106			106

As can be seen from the table, almost 80 per cent of school-age orphans in fact attended school.
Under the Support Program, 103 children received assistance. Ten of them were in fact under fifteen but were supported under this program because their fathers are alive, but have deserted their families or are unable to care for the child in question. The table below shows the composition of this beneficiary group:

Support statistics 2008

Gender

Age group

Education

< 15

15 to 18

> 18

Attend school

Attend literacy class

Under age

Retarded / sick / handicpd

Dropped out

Skills training

Univ.

Other

103

IRAC, with funding from LFT, will offer tools or other assistance to orphans who finish their skills training and wish to enter the workforce. 209 families, who used to receive assistance under the Support Program, have been granted pushcarts and stalls for selling goods in 2008. These beneficiaries were not able to learn any specialized skill, mainly due to problems with their refugee IDs that prevented them from attending school or training courses. IRAC will report separately about this program.

IRAC implemented the Support Program for the first time during 2008. IRAC’s staff members did their best to guide children as well as their mothers towards planning and working for the future and were pleased to report that many adolescent orphans who had just stayed at home before the implementation of the Support Program returned to school, attended training courses or entered an unpaid apprenticeship contract under the influence of the program.

During 2008, a total of 129 orphans sponsored under the Orphans Program and the Support Program attended school, literacy classes or university while 23 young adults acquired marketable skills.

The lists below offer information on each orphan:
Table 1: Orphans under fifteen years:

NO.

Seyyed?

gender

Name

Location

Guardian

DoB

Date of Father's Death

Reason for Death

Educ.

Average

No. of Fam.

Monthly Income (Rial)

Fatemeh Rah al-Ame

Qum

Mother

2003

2006

heart attack

under age

1,000,000

Qassem Rah al-Ame

Qum

Mother

1998

2006

heart attack

5th primary

19.00

1,000,000

Donya Ahm al-Jab

Qum

Mother

2002

2006

killed in quarrel

1st primary

19.00

no regular income

Hussein Ahm al-Jab

Qum

Mother

2001

2006

killed in quarrel

2nd primary

18.50

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2008 Joint LFT – IRAC Sponsorship of 209 Iraqi and Afghani orphans in Iran 12/02/2009

2008 Joint LFT – IRAC Sponsorship of 209 Iraqi and Afghani orphans in Iran
12/02/2009