Islamic Relief’s Orphan Sponsorship Programme
First launched in 1986, as part of the Muslim Yateem and Widows Fund, what is now the Orphan Sponsorship Programme began by supporting children in Afghanistan. Over the years, the programme has grown and expanded to 93,200 orphans across 27 countries, including Gaza, Sudan, Albania, Kenya and Pakistan.
In October 1997, the programme moved closer to what it is today. Under the title, Orphan Welfare Programme, it helped provide support for children’s basic needs such as food, clothing, as well as long-term support in education, healthcare, and income generation for their guardians.
In 1999, one-to-one sponsorship began in the West Bank and Gaza, where we provided orphaned children and their families with food, housing, clothes, health and education, while sponsored children also received educational support.
In 2003, Islamic Relief was one of the few international aid agencies to deliver aid during the war in Iraq.
Why sponsor an orphan with Islamic Relief
Our programme is well-established, and we have a wealth of knowledge and experience around supporting orphans and their families in the best way possible.
We ensure the following in our Orphan Sponsorship Programme, to maintain transparency, fairness and high-standards, so that orphans and their families are provided with the highest level of care.
- Every sponsored child is assigned a dedicated field officer who ensures their welfare and provides an annual report beneficial for individual donors.
- The project also includes monitoring of sponsored families, guaranteeing that they receive all advantages of sponsorship, including essential health checks, education and housing assessments, and improvements when possible.
- We ensure that those most in need receive support: Each Country office has its own scoring system which assesses the situation of the child’s family based on certain criteria, such as housing conditions, income and health.
- Regular safeguarding training for Islamic Relief staff across the globe.
We aim to ensure that those benefiting from our programme gain:
- Improved education results which are above national average, throughout primary, secondary and university level.
- A healthier lifestyle and environment.
- Improved psychological and spiritual wellbeing.
- Increased awareness around child protection issues and a safer home environment.
- Improved economic conditions and wellbeing of orphan families.
To our knowledge, Islamic Relief is perhaps one of the only charities to offer a true one-to-one orphan sponsorship programme, where the donation continuously goes to the same orphan. This allows for the life of the same orphan to be continuously transformed long term, which means that the change isn’t short term but they are able to truly rise above their circumstances, gain the opportunities they deserve, and build a better life for themselves and their families.
It is a common practice of some charities to direct orphan sponsorship funds to support groups of orphans as a whole through communal programming, rather than an actual one-to-one programme. This allows for lower prices that overall can help supplement the needs of orphans and provide uplifting programming, but do not offer the opportunity for transformative change for individuals.