Alhamdulillah, our trip to Cambodia from 28th November to 1st December 2022 to deliver aid to the Muslims there has been a success. This is a follow-up after a series of various aid, including the building of wells, the building of ablution facilities for madrasahs, and the sponsorship of tahfiz children at Maahad Tahfiz Abdussalam in Phnom Penh. The Maahad provides free education to children from poor and impoverished families.
Our delegation comprised Hamidi Abdul Rahman (the President of PISANG), Dr Nor Azian Abdul Rahman (the Director of Research of PISANG) and Nurah Abdul Rahman (a volunteer from Malaysia). We were greeted by Ustaz Abdus Salam al-Hafiz (the President of the Association for the Development of Cambodian Community, and also the founder and head of Maahad Tahfiz Abdus Salam) and Brother Hannafy.
Our first destination was Koh Kong, near the border with Thailand, which was a 6-hour drive from Phnom Penh. There we had a meeting with the local Muslim community and also visited houses that were built in the sea by poor Muslims who could not afford any land. There are more than 2000 families living in that type of house. Sooner or later, the authorities will demolish the houses, and those people will be homeless. It is a matter of urgency that something must be done now to avoid this catastrophe.
There are many foreign organisations that are currently giving aid to Muslims in Cambodia. PISANG is one of them, but we want to help them in a different way. Giving aid from time to time will help them for a limited period of time, but their conditions will not improve over time. They will remain poor, living in places with no proper sanitation, having little or unaffordable access to education, having extremely limited job opportunities, and will remain dependent on aid.
We know the proverb, “Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day, teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime”. In order the change the fate of the Muslims there, we need to provide new infrastructures to enable them to move forward with their lives and be independent of aid. Islam puts a great emphasis on the building of various infrastructures for living, including infrastructures for learning, such as the building of educational institutions. We need funding in order to help them, as they do not get any funding allocation from the government. When we talk about building infrastructures, we are talking about raising a large amount of money. We want to buy about 2000 lots of land, each measuring 5m x 20m. The lots will be used to relocate 2000 poor families. We are working on this project with our partners in Cambodia. This is an important “fi sabilillah” project, and it is achievable if you support our crowdfunding effort. You can contribute to this project by paying your zakat to us or through donations. The whole project will create new job opportunities, and new economic activities in the area will sustain the development of the Muslim community there insha’Allah. By making financial contributions, we will be part of the movement for social change.
Bank details
Bank: Lloyds Bank
Account name: Pisang
Sort-code: 30-90-77
Account number: 17963868
BIC: LOYDGB21434
IBAN: GB32 LOYD 3090 7717 9638 68