An Ilorin-based Non-Governmental Organisation, the Pious Muslim Women has earmarked Ten Million Naira (N10,000,000) to feed about 2000 Muslims across nine states during this year’s Ramadan fast .
The founder of the NGO, Dr Hamdalat Yusuf said that this is the sixth in the series since 2014 when the group was established.
“Every year, we organise our Ramadan Feeding Programme. It is one of our many programmes aimed at benefiting the vulnerable in the society. Our Ramadan Feeding programme is a succour to widows, orphans and indigent Muslims in our community.
“We cover the major towns of nine states in Nigeria in which most of our members reside. The states are Kwara, Lagos, Osun, Ogun, Oyo, Kaduna, Kano, Niger and Rivers States.”
“Our usual practice is to give raw food stuff such as rice, beans, garri, wheat, semovita and groundnut oil, amongst others.
“However, because of the COVID-19 pandemic, this year, we decided to give a sum of N5000 to each of our beneficiaries.
“The target is to feed about 2000 people across these states”, She said.
Yusuf said the distribution of the relief Ramadan food support for indigent Muslims began on Wednesday April 22.
“This year’s feeding exercise will gulp about N10 million to feed 2000 people.”
Yusuf added that Pious generated the bulk of its funds from its members who are spread not only in several states of Nigeria but are also in Canada, UK, South Africa, Ghana, Dubai, etc.”
She stressed that the organisation, whose activities are mostly online, was founded primarily to improve on the spiritual development of its members. However, it has expanded its focus to benefit others especially the vulnerable in the society.
Some of its programmes include youth empowerment through the free training of youths at its fashion training institute; the boosting of entrepreneurial abilities of about 50 widows every year; scholarship grants to about 20 orphans at the three levels of education and ownership of an orphanage where it takes full responsibility of 10 orphans from age zero to ten.
This year’s Ramadan will start on Friday April 24 with the possible sighting of the moon on Thursday night.
