LONDON – A British humanitarian charity has launched a new campaign to raise funds for orphaned children this Ramadan, hosting a series of events across the UK.
“This Ramadan, Penny Appeal is organizing the perfect Iftar for you and your family with an enlightening evening of spiritual reflection and traditional Nasheed,” Penny Appeal said on its website.
The events, held under the banner “Be The Change”, includes a series of special iftar events during Ramadan.
The tour across six UK towns and cities, including, Blackburn (25 May), Manchester (26 May), Bradford (27 May), Leeds (31 May), Leicester (1 June) and Birmingham (2 June).
The evening includes sounds and talks from Shaykh Navaid Aziz, Boona Mohammed, Imam Ajmal Masroor and Faisal Salah.
Tickets are priced at just £10 per person. All proceeds from the event will be donated to Penny Appeal’s Hifz Orphan campaign.
“All proceeds go to Penny Appeal’s Hifz Orphan campaign, a unique sponsorship program that rescues neglected young orphans,” the website says.
“Each Hifz Orphan is given a home, a foster mother, nutritious meals, clothing and medical care and taught how to read, learn and memorize the Holy Qur’an.”
Last year, the charity, based in Wakefield, West Yorkshire, won £200,000 funding from the Department for Education to support the 12-month project.
According to information revealed by the charity, 2,000 of the 70,000 children in care in 2015 were of Muslim heritage.
The actual figure is expected to be higher as a third of English councils do not record the religion of children in their care and a number of recently arrived unaccompanied asylum-seeking children in the UK are Muslims.
Islam endorses fostering orphan kids, allowing Muslims to a boy or a girl and takes care of him or her as a real father or mother would do to their child while keeping in mind that the child should be named after his/her biological parents.
Yet, Islam makes it impermissible to adopt a child and name him after his adoptive parents, while denying his real parents.