
This International Literacy Day, discover how Islamic Relief’s education projects are changing lives in poor communities worldwide.
- Less than one per cent of women in Afghanistan are literate. Supported by specialist teachers, thousands of poor women in Bamiyan province are accessing our home-based learning and gaining essential skills – including reading and writing – that they need to improve their lives.
- In Bangladesh, many children like Jewel are forced to work to help support their families. An Islamic Relief project in Dhaka is giving children access to education and training to enable them to escape hazardous work.
- Our Development Centre in Chechnya is enabling hearing-impaired people to access mainstream opportunities. Based in Grozny, the popular centre and its outreach service provide deaf men and women with free classes in sign-language, as well as reading and writing both Russian and Arabic.
- Lingshan village, in China’s Sichuan province, received a brand new school through our recent integrated development project. We constructed the village school to provide children with a safe learning environment, as part of wider work to improve access to essential services in the community.
- Growing up in Ethiopia’s capital city, Sisay Sira had to drop out of school when he became ill and his grandfather could not afford to pay for his treatment. But then, Sisay was enrolled on our orphan sponsorship scheme – which provided support while he continued his studies. He is now a teacher.
- Hundreds of children living in a slum are benefitting from our education project in India’s Ahmedabad city. Eight education centres are providing children – mostly girls – with high-quality basic education, and our enrolment drive aims to engage around 1,500 children in attending school.
- Indonesia’s Aceh province was left devastated by the tsunami of 2004. Our most recent post-disaster programme project has seen eleven orphanages and boarding schools receiving support to generate an income. The schools are now able to maintain and improve their education services.
- Over 2,000 children are benefitting from our project to improve secondary education in Iraq. Five schools are being repaired and improved, and are receiving furniture and equipment – as well as teacher training. We are also providing school uniforms, stationery and access to extra-curricular activities.
- Muhidin and Abdisalan are amongst around 2,300 children benefitting from our project to improve living and educational standards at Alnajah Children’s Home in Garissa, Kenya. The orphanage received kitchen facilities, latrines, a playground and classroom equipment – with a committee trained to oversee ongoing maintenance and management.
- Almost 200 Tunisian students received nutritious snacks and mineral water through a project designed to empower poor children to unlock the benefits of education. During the project at Ghorghar primary school, Islamic Relief provided 18,250 snacks covering 70 school-days.