As the “Makers of Hope” initiative prepares to crown the champions of the Arab Hope Industry in Dubai on February 20, and after its third session received more than 92,000 participants from 38 countries, the chapters of inspiring stories that filtered this year to present the bright faces of volunteer, charitable and humanitarian work in the Arab world Various tracks of development, from construction, education, health, environment, relief, and community empowerment.

These stories, which the "Makers of Hope" initiative, affiliated with the Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum Initiatives International Foundation, looked for its heroes in various parts of the great Arab world, today offer to his children role models for individuals who have become beacons in their societies.

The "House of Hope" provided relief support to 32,000 families

The Somali woman, Zahraa Hassan Farah, was not able to see orphaned children suffer from one of the famines that struck her land in 2010, standing idly by, how they deluded the future of the country and the home of hope and ambition. She first thought about providing food and clothing to children, but she wanted to provide them with something continuous and sustainable that enables them And they have support and assistance in making their future, she said to herself: "Do not give me a fish, but teach me how to fish", so the school was.

I started to buy a plot of land for its construction, and I contacted individuals and institutions who love good and tender who are keen on the future of Somalia and its sons, until the cost of the land, construction costs, covering, equipping, provision of seats, books, and many other requirements are provided. The school has continued its expansion since then to become a comprehensive charity under the name of “Mrs. Khadija Orphanage”, covering an area of ​​100 hectares.

The Foundation's activities diversified to include - in addition to caring, education and empowering orphans - providing support to poor families, organizing training courses for young people, empowering women and people of determination, as well as providing relief support in times of natural disasters, in cooperation with charitable and humanitarian institutions, including the UAE Red Crescent and the African Fund For Education, and the Khalifa Bin Zayed Al Nahyan Foundation for Humanitarian Action.

The Foundation succeeded in providing comprehensive care for more than 14,000 orphans, and caring for 75 children of determination, in addition to providing support to 732 poor families.

Since its inception, the initiative has succeeded in providing relief support to 32,000 families and assisting more than 200,000 people by providing meals to those who have had to leave their homes, especially in cases of disasters and droughts that hit their agricultural lands.

17 projects make the village without unemployment

"The first weather is a drop, which is five piasters per month, not exhausting anyone, but it gathers together one drop after another to make a real difference in the development of our village."

This is how the Egyptian citizen Abdel Salam Senussi spoke before the people of his village, Al-Bashendi, more than 40 years ago, to become a village without unemployment, and to provide employment and development opportunities for the residents of the neighboring villages of the New Valley in the Arab Republic of Egypt.

The idea was launched in 1979 when Abdel Salam proposed to his village people the establishment of a charity for the development of the village, where every citizen pays five piasters per month to contribute to achieving stable capital for all. The principle was simple, little continuous, better than many, and continuity in contributing was the guarantee.

Today, the association’s fixed capital has reached more than five million pounds, except for financial and in-kind contributions and donations that flow to the association in emergency and natural disasters.

After the association started, on a limited scale, to open the door for the women of the village to enhance the family's income by sewing and detailing, it turned into large projects for the manufacture of carpets and the Egyptian kilim of handmade and wool textiles required locally and Arably.

Over the years, the association expanded to establish in the village a farm to raise 1,000 heads of sheep and goats as an animal wealth project, to provide raw materials for the manufacture of carpets and kilims, and to provide job opportunities.

And the development projects of the association continued until they reached 17 projects that branched into all tracks of economic, social, intellectual and human development.

Zahra used her time to teach the people of her village

12 years ago, when she saw the people of her village fleeing towards the cities to complete their education and find job opportunities, the Omani woman, Zahra Salem Al-Awfiya, decided to use her time and education in a project that benefits the villagers, and enables her children scientifically and cognitively. ».

After her children set out to pursue their graduate studies and career paths, she began her project with 20 children of neighbors who learned the Noble Qur’an, hadith, literature, and social sciences, and pursued their educational development with beneficial activities in the summer vacation.

Zahra then moved on to help the illiterate women of the village to learn the basics of reading and writing, and the villagers began pushing their children to the house of Zahra to open the horizons of science and knowledge, until the number of her students reached 100 students.

Then she hesitated on the remote and mountainous villages, cutting distances towards students, inspecting their conditions, working to enhance their cognitive abilities and developing their self-learning skills. Then, girls from those villages joined them to volunteer at nominal wages to contribute to the educational initiative, so that the initiative includes 24 classrooms in 24 villages, and the number of beneficiaries reached 500 individuals per year.

Zahra, who won first place in the Sultan Qaboos Award for Voluntary Work in the Sultanate of Oman in 2018, was ranked in the list of the 10 best pioneering and influential women personalities in the Arab world during the Conference on the Role of Arab Women in Community Development in 2018, and today she is an Omani and Arab symbol for the initiative woman capable of The active contribution to the development of her country and society through an individual effort and a personal impulse that is less than equal.