Education Support for Shia Students
When Bilal Officials visited His Eminence Ayatullah al Udhma Sayyid Ali Husseini al-Sistani (May Allah protect him and prolong his life) last January, one of the issues that he impressed upon our Institution was the importance of Education for the local community. He repeated this same message again to a delegation that visited him in October last year to report on the progress of Bilal activities. The second important issue he addressed on both occasions was the issues of poverty alleviation. This will be covered in the next report.
On Higher Education, currently we have an AFED Sponsored BLESS scheme which assists students going to universities. However, we lacked a facility for students going to colleges for certificate or diploma courses as well as vocational training with this in mind Bilal Muslim Mission of Tanzania embarked on the expansion of Education facilitation. In partnership with THE MAINSTAY FOUNDATION of UK, which provided with a grant this year, gratefully, we have been able to fill in this gap in the current academic year.
The following is the summary of the grants provided:
AFED BLESS Scheme for University Students:
The MAINSTAY Scheme for College and Vocational Education Training (VETA)
A total of 207 students have benefited from both the schemes as shown in the above two tables.
The requirement of the funding for education is huge and these schemes have enabled many students to access higher education who would have otherwise failed to get to college. Parents were also very appreciative of this assistance, some breaking in joyous tears, unbelieving that their child will finally go to a college.
This was the first year and we expect a bigger demand in the next academic year starting August 2023.
The Bilal Muslim Mission of Tanzania is thankful to AFED and THE MAINSTAY FOUNDATION of UK for their assistance and we hope they will continue to do so. We also welcome other private and institutional donor to assist in whatever way they can to eliminate poverty and raise the standard of living of our fellow Shias brothers and sisters.
Secretariat
Bilal Muslim Mission of Tanzania
24th February 2023