A Birmingham Islamic charity has marked 30 years of providing international aid to people in need worldwide, growing from a small humanitarian charity into a global development agency.

“Islamic Relief’s major single aid and development program is in Pakistan and it has the largest aid program in Palestine apart from those of UN agencies,” a spokesman for the Birmingham office told Birmingham Post on February, May 2.

“Its biggest emergency relief operation is in Syria, where it is responding to the worst humanitarian crisis for a generation.

“It has provided food, shelter, medical aid and other assistance to over two million Syrians, both deep inside the country and in neighboring Jordan, Lebanon, Iraq and Turkey. Islamic Relief works in the most difficult places around the world,” he added.

International Development Secretary Justine Greening visited the charity and praised its work to mark its anniversary on Thursday.

Islamic Relief Worldwide (IRW) is an international relief and development organization consisting of a family of 15 aid agencies that aims to alleviate the suffering of the world’s poorest people.

Founded in the UK in 1984 with the stated mission of alleviating suffering, hunger, illiteracy and diseases worldwide regardless of color, race or creed, Islamic relief is now the biggest Muslim international relief and development charity in the West.

Two of the organization’s founders were British doctors who worked with a team of volunteers from a small office in the Moseley area of Birmingham.

They raised £100,000 for those affected by the famine and established what has grown into one of the world’s largest Muslim faith-based help groups, with a presence in 43 countries and a worldwide annual income of over £100 million.

In 1989 the organization was incorporated under the Companies Act and registered with the UK Charity Commission. In the 1990s it opened offices across Asia, Africa, the Middle East and Europe.

Islamic Relief was the first Muslim humanitarian agency to receive UK government funding – £180,000 for a training centre in the North Kordofan region of Sudan in 1994.

It continues to work in partnership with the Department for International Development, receiving £5 million in match funding for its Ramadan appeal in 2012 for countries affected by climate-related natural disasters and a £2 million grant for an education project for Syrian refugee children in Jordan in 2013.

http://www.onislam.net/english/news/global/472057-islamic-relief-celebrates-30-years-of-giving.html

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