Thursday 09 / January / 2025
Muscat: Donations from kind-hearted citizens and residents across the Sultanate has enabled a charity organisation in the Sultanate to provide a brighter future to more than 2,000 orphans in Oman.
Al Rahma Association for Motherhood and Childhood, which is part of the Oman Charitable Organisation, donated OMR 944,063 between January and June, including OMR 355,940 on the welfare and care of orphans.
In addition to 2,000 school bags delivered to the orphans, nearly one million Omani Rials were spent by Al Rahma on several social causes, including education, housing and utilities, meals for families and breakfast for schoolchildren.
"We generally expect to break OMR2 million every year in total donations, and this year will, hopefully, be no different,” said Rahima Al Musafir, the head of Al Rahma.
They spend OMR70,000 of sponsors' donations every month to help a total of 2,270. Each orphan receives between OMR30 to OMR50, based on the payments of the sponsor. Each child is counted on his or her own in that case, so payments per household can vary.
The Association spent the largest sum of money — OMR355,940 — on over 2,000 orphans, followed by miscellaneous gifts that cost OMR255,651 and OMR104,750, spent on assistance for 621 families in difficult situations.
A statement from the association said, “Al Rahma spent OMR944,063 between January and June of this year”.
Depending on the case, donors can also visit those children they are assisting.
“The sponsor can also receive information about the children he or she is helping, and after asking for permission and going through procedures, the children can be visited and checked up on every so often, or visited during Eid or anything similar,” added Al Musafir. “Sponsoring orphans is the only activity where we are allowed to work all over the Sultanate. The children must be under 18 and in a situation where we can prove that they need our help.”
On the educational front, the charity paid college tuition fees for 22 students and provided 607 schoolchildren with breakfasts. The association also provided school children with 2,000 schoolbags.
“We spend about OMR50,000 to OMR60,000 each year on college students,” added Al Musafir, “College students are particularly important to me. Of the 4100 families registered for aid with our association, 90 per cent have providers with a high school diploma or less. Normally, if a provider has a bachelor’s degree, then he or she can provide for the household.
“We used to try and provide funding for a four-year degree for students, but these costs add up and now, and many students are thankfully covered by the government,” she said. “Five years ago, we started to help students who are already in college, but whose funding was cut off for certain reasons, such as the death of a parent or a sponsor withdrawing their funding. We try to make sure students have good grades, and then help until they finish college.”
Often dependent on the generosity of those who live and work in the Sultanate, Al Rahma normally depends on people to seek assistance and fill out a form requesting assistance, after which a study is conducted by the organisation.
She said, “The biggest problem people reach out to us about is housing. We pay around OMR100,000 per year purely for rents,” she said.
When it comes to families, Al Rahma provided 2,705 food packages, repaired and maintained three homes, paid the rent for 48 homes, paid 17 families’ electricity bills, and also provided electronic appliances to 272 families. The association also spent thousands on a Ramadan programme, which fed people who were fasting. They then bought gifts for 1,690 families during Eid, and provided 1,112 animals for festivities.
Al Rahma works exclusively in Muscat, as decreed when the organization changed from a volunteer team into an association in 2016. She explained that as an association, al Rahma is allowed to work within the geographic borders of Muscat.
There are also many cases in which the male provider of a family leaves an uneducated family to fend for its own.
“When he leaves, is in prison, or is unable to provide for the family, we find that in those cases the woman who is left to provide for her family has an insufficient education,” said Al Musafir. “She either finished elementary, secondary, or high school, but is rarely college educated. There have been, maybe, two or three cases in which someone in that sort of situation came to us with a college education.”
