DRIVEN: Dr Azie Debsan al-Qahtani is an inspirational leader, who has left no stone unturned to make Raf reach out to the needy. Photo by Umer Nangiana
By Umer Nangiana
In a short span since its establishment in 2009, Sheikh Thani bin Abdullah Foundation for Humanitarian Services (Raf) has already covered major distance in terms of providing humanitarian and relief assistance in the time of natural disasters, education and health to people in deprived areas of the world as well as means of permanent income for people in need.
“Raf aims to provide relief, aid, health and education to the needy all over the world. We work in 90 countries and we are reaching out to all people regardless of their race, colour or ethnicities,” Dr Azie Debsan al-Qahtani, Chairman of the Board of Trustees and General Manager of Raf, tells Community in an interview.
“Besides Asia, Africa and other continents, we work in Latin America and even in Europe, providing assistance to the elderly there,” says al-Qahtani.
Beginning charity at home, Raf is present in many Arab countries, including conflict-hit Iraq, Yemen and Sudan. They focus on healthcare, education, disaster relief and emergency response. The organisation has provided aid to victims of natural disasters in Pakistan, Philippines, Somalia and many other countries.
The organisation works on the idea that about 60 percent of its funds come from endowments while donors provide the rest.
In one of its programmes called ‘Dream Come True’, Raf is reaching out to children with disabilities and serious diseases.
“These little children will have small dreams about having a lot of things in their lives such as an iPhone or an iPad. We have made this dream come true for about 40 children here in Qatar,” says al-Qahtani, who is the driving force behind many successful Raf projects.
One of the biggest projects of Raf is providing sponsorships to orphans. So far they have helped thousands of such children and they have a new project coming up for them.
“We have a new model for a project to help orphans. It is about constructing new buildings with schools and health centre units and we have to build such buildings in a lot of countries, including Syria, Sudan, Yemen, Indonesia, Pakistan, etc.,” says the Raf GM.
Raf has associate partners in almost every continent with whom it collaborates aside four main offices in Tunisia, Sudan, Jordan and Egypt.
In the field of education, Raf has elaborate and extensive programmes in countries where it is needed the most. “We have a big university in Nairobi (Kenya) and we call it Raf University International. It has 11 colleges and it is one of the biggest in East Africa. Soon it will have colleges in medicine, engineering and various disciplines. It is spread over 30 acres,” al-Qahtani says. In the university, 20 percent of the fee for the poor students is sponsored by Raf.
In Qatar, under one of their projects, “Taking somebody out of misery”, the organisation provides housing, furniture and food to the labourers and people who do not have means to afford them.
“We take the food that is left unused in hotels and restaurants and give it to the needy,” says the Raf chairman.
“Here, we also have a programme — Barakah — to educate people and landlords on how to treat their servants nicely. Barakah was the name of the servant of Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) and it serves as an example in how he (PBUH) used to treat her,” says al-Qahtani.
“We go and teach all the landlords and people who have servants on how to be kind to them,” he adds.
The organisation not just provides food and assistance all the time. Among its many projects, one pertains to micro-finance for the needy in different countries so that they can have some kind of self-sustained livelihood.
“For instance, we would provide fishing equipment or livestock such as cows or goats to people so that they can earn something for themselves and not depend on aid,” says al-Qahtani.
In disaster relief, Raf also provides equipment to purify water such as providing water filters in flood-hit areas because the first thing people need there is clean drinking water.
As part of their cultural exchange programme, they have intercultural dialogue between Arabs and China. Under this cultural programme, Raf has translated 30 books from Arabic to Chinese so far.
“These books are translated from Arabic to Chinese, printed and then sent to China to be placed in universities, schools, mosque and other public places.”
He says the organisation maintains quality and transparency in work. Every year, they have development projects coming up and every year — shortly before or after Ramadan — it holds a meeting of all its partners where all the associates can communicate.
The organisation has also signed multiple co-operation memorandums with organisations such as UNHCR (United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees) in many countries.
It also has a memorandum with OCHA (Office for the Co-ordination of Humanitarian Affairs) in all of Africa for training and capacity building of charity organisations and partners.
“These partners will have certain deficiencies in managing finances or project development, for instance. Raf will go and help them by providing them training on all these aspects. And by doing this, we raise the level of their competence and enhance their efficacy in reaching out to people in need,” says
al-Qahtani.
In future, Raf is planning programmes for the education of children specifically in countries which no other organisation is reaching out to.
“These programmes will focus on areas which are often ignored by other organisations and there are many such countries. There are lots of people in these countries who need assistance. We are trying to reach out to them,” says Raf chairman.
The organisation is also planning to launch awareness programmes about human values. Al-Qahtani says they already have three universities in Somalia, Sudan and Kenya and are now planning to have more in Indonesia, Philippines, Pakistan, Mali and other countries.
