Hajar s Well 2014 Annual Report

Transcription

1 Hajar s Well 2014 Annual Report Hajar s Well April 5, 2015 fitra.way2sagesse@gmail.com

2 1 A Message from the Chair As Salaamu alaikum, Greetings to all. Alhamdulillah, (All thanks and praise to Allah) Hajar s Well s inaugural year as a Non-Profit Organization is behind us. We are grateful for the progress that the women whose cases we have been involved with are making, and are gradually widening the circle of lives we touch. Our major achievements as an organization were humble and simple ones - successfully filing for incorporation and obtaining classification as a 501 (c) Charitable Organization. For us, these two were no small feat and we continue to work on tying up loose ends to meet all the requirements at both state and national levels to maintain and fully benefit from this status. Though we only handled a handful of cases, we are pleased to note that the simple act of turning a loving and concerned eye towards another individual s troubles, uplifts that person, and allows for seeds of hope to take root. Sometimes that is all that we were able to do, but we did hear from some of our clients that this alone was a tremendous relief. As we are able to put more time and energy into fundraising and generate some sponsorship for our activities, we expect and hope that our impact will increase proportionally. In the meantime, we ask that you spend a few minutes hearing about the lives we have touched, say a prayer for each of them, and plan to support our cause and future projects in whatever way you can. May each year bring us closer to living the message of the Prophets, and may the Most Gracious accept each humble effort from you and from us. Faithfully, Maimuna Mahdi-Wideman

3 2 Contents Executive Summary... 1 Contents... 2 Our Beneficiaries... 3 Our Beneficiaries... 4 Services Summary... 4 Financials... 5 Looking forward. 5

4 3 Our Beneficiaries We are pleased to note that we have been able to offer assistance to a diverse (if small) circle of women this year. The names and images used in this report are fictitious, though their stories do belong to women in our community, whose Identity we hope to shield. A sister from the African Diaspora We assisted a single, elderly woman on the point of homelessness move to a place where she had a modicum of shelter, and hope that though we did not have the means to do more, the kindness and respect we modeled, encouraged another family to extend her a generous and openhearted welcome into their home, for a while. During this time at her new temporary home, we were able to offer transportation to assist her, as needed, with accomplishing errands in her first few months there. We remained in touch with Farah during the course of the year, and assisted her with $ towards paying her rental bills, and some $ for miscellaneous payments for such items as groceries, health supplies, and fees. In addition, we took her case to another organization and were able to garner an additional sum of $ towards housing. In total, she received $1, Farah, more than any of our beneficiaries expresses frequently how much the kindness, and the shoulder to lean on has benefited and uplifted her. She has thus far maintained a much better standard of living since we first encountered her, and seems close to being able to begin to address the core of her difficulties, which center on her immigration status. A sister who hails from South America We were able to provide several sessions of assistance in filing her immigration paperwork, totaling approximately 5 hours of advocacy for this young mother. She lives in an emotionally abusive relationship and not least of the help provided to her was the simple listening ear, and willingness to take action on her behalf. Additionally we were able to provide $ to allow her to make Child Support payments in a case against an ex-husband who was attempting to wrestle custody of her eldest daughter from her. Though she relies on another party for legal advice in extricating herself from her dependence on her abusive spouse, we have been able to offer to witness one of meetings she was granted with that advocate, and offer advice of how best she might proceed to change her situation.

5 4 A Sister of the Arab Diaspora We were able to accompany this young mother at her most vulnerable moment, and be a companion as she sought help from the existing organizations in our community. This led to recognition of a bonafide need, and collective efforts to assist her family through its various challenges ranging from unemployment, emotional abuse from an in-law, to eviction. Alhamdulillah, now her family is more stable. She is now employed, and her children have had a stable home and a vehicle, away from their abusive grandparent. Sara has the building blocks at hand to continue to move forward with greater respect from the community, and certainly more support. She received at least $ in financial assistance from Hajar s Well. Support Categories Financial Advocacy Material Transportation

6 5 Financials Services Summary Our beneficiaries actually received more money than we ourselves have available thanks to the kindness of the Faith Community. Jamaat Ibad Ar Rahman Masjid was kind enough to lay out over $ in support of the women whom we brought to their attention as having financial needs. The support of this community was critical in this interim period while we are preparing to learn the ropes of grant writing, and find time to plan for the future of our organization. Both founders struggled to balance our time volunteering on behalf of Hajar s Well, as we held down jobs and continued our personal development through Online University Classes. As such, the money garnered for our beneficiaries actually exceeds the money we currently have on hand. Instead, we were able to allocate much of this money towards capital development as we prepare and hope to launch the school in coming years, Insha Allah. Total Funds garnered for and paid out to our beneficiaries - $2, Our Income 100% from informal donations in 2013 to November 2014 was - $1, of which $ remains in hand to support our for now modest capital development fund. Direct support we paid out to our beneficiaries was $ We are thankful to Allah that we were able to assist these women with more funds than we had on hand ourselves, thanks to the generosity of our faith community leaders. The assistance we gave by transporting our beneficiaries to and from various places are less easy to summarize here as we did not organize ourselves to log the hours but 20 hours is a reasonable estimate. In addition, about 35 hours was spent counseling and advocating for these women in their diverse circumstances. Looking Forward We expect 2015 to remain relatively quiet in the second half of the year as a founding member takes a sabbatical to experiment with a pilot of our school concept, organized by the Nur Center in Virginia. We expect a shift from grassroots assistance involving transportation and purchasing groceries and the like, to mostly financial help. Our focus in 2015 will be on learning about writing grants and actually writing for grants so that we can fund the launch of our own Ismael Montessori School in 2017 Insha Allah. We hope that such a school will in the future provide stable income for several families while providing our faith community with a tried and true method of integrating Islamic Education with the Montessori Program.