Founded in 1993 in Los Angeles, California, Islamic Relief USA (IRUSA) is a humanitarian organization that provides valuable services and support to vulnerable populations worldwide, regardless of race, religion, or gender. The Charity Navigator four-star nonprofit is part of the global Islamic Relief family, one of the largest Islamic NGOs in the world, and has provided millions of dollars in funding for critical programs and interventions in the US and abroad.
Operating under the core values and teachings in the Quran and prophetic example of excellence, sincerity, social justice, compassion, and custodianship, IRUSA’s humanitarian work includes food and refugee aid, emergency response, education, assistance for orphans and children, and microfinancing. It also organizes programs and facilitates critical interventions aimed at enhancing health equity around the world. In 2022 alone, IRUSA, with the help of its donors and corporate partners, provided meals for 2.2 million people during Qurbani and Ramadan and committed $10 million to health and educational causes in Afghanistan.
Below is an in-depth look at global health inequity and how IRUSA is working to improve health care around the world.
Global health inequity
Health care is a basic human right, but unfortunately not everyone has equal access to key preventative and rehabilitative medical services. In the most recent World Health Organization (WHO) estimate, as many as 3.5 billion people, which is roughly half the global population, have inadequate access to these health services and programs. Moreover, nearly 100 million people are in extreme poverty every year as a result of out-of-pocket medical expenses. United Nations member states are working to ensure that everyone has adequate access to health care by 2030 as part of the Health For All campaign. Without effective intervention, WHO estimates that as many as 5 billion people won’t have sufficient access to health care by then.
Access to education, housing, and food help to play a major role in life expectancy, so much so that people living in high-income countries live on average 19 years longer than people in low-income countries. Beyond operating key food relief and education programs in many countries, IRUSA has delivered a range of health care programs to enhance the livelihoods of the world’s most vulnerable people.
IRUSA’s health interventions
Since its inception, IRUSA has been committed to providing health care to people in need around the world, particularly during periods of conflict or following natural disasters. In 2004, IRUSA and its donors sent funding to help build health clinics, schools, and homes in Indonesia after a devastating tsunami. The following year, it helped fund a new health care facility to care for Hurricane Katrina survivors.
Some of IRUSA’s more recent health interventions include providing a mobile clinic for Syrian refugees in Jordan, basic health care services for internally displaced people in Somalia, and greater access to health care for women and children in Palestine. Meanwhile, IRUSA’s international Islamic Relief partners have also played a key role in reducing acute malnutrition in Niger, a country in which the global organization has been active since 2005. Islamic Relief provided more than 400,000 people in Niger with health care services in 2022.
The For Mama campaign
According to WHO, in excess of 800 women die every day from complications relating to pregnancy and childbirth, while about 13,800 children under 5 died every day in 2020. The majority of these deaths are preventable with access to quality clinical care and monitoring. As part of a global effort to address this issue, IRUSA is proud to be a founding funding partner of the For Mama campaign. The campaign, launched by faith-based charities and high net worth individuals in the US and UK, strives to raise awareness of the maternal death rate and provide mothers and their children with the care they deserve.
“As founding partners, we stand united with the ‘For Mama’ campaign and reaffirm our commitment to protecting mothers and babies,” said IRUSA CEO Ahmed Shehata. “This cause is not just an opportunity to center mothers’ and babies’ access to proper health care, but a duty, aligning deeply with our Islamic values of compassion and safeguarding every precious life around the globe.”
Doctors Worldwide, Human Concern International, Muslim Aid UK, Penny Appeal Canada, and Syrian Community Network are among the organizations supporting the For Mama campaign.
Ways to Donate
To donate to the For Mama campaign, IRUSA supporters can visit actformama.org. Donations go toward critical interventions, including IV iron, advanced postpartum hemorrhage drapes, and maternal azithromycin. IRUSA called upon donors to rally together for the cause during Ramadan, while the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation promised to donate $1 USD for every $3 raised, up to a total of $3 million.
IRUSA supporters can also choose specific areas, therefore health or food aid, or countries to which they wish to donate. At irusa.org/health, donors can make one-time donations of $50 (hygiene kits), $100 (medical supplies), or $500 (mobile clinic support).