Muslims Creating Jobs, and Peace. SJ Dodgson MJoTA v6n1 p0213
In 2006 when a group of enlightened students and faculty worked with me to create the first issue of Medical Journal of Therapeutics Africa, the forerunner of what is now MJoTA.org and MJoTAtalks.org, I asked the writers to find examples of Muslim philanthropy in Africa to counterbalance the many stories of Christian pastors and retired Christian ladies showing up in remote villages and creating schools and temporary healthcare that completely depend on supplies and funds coming from the United States.
No-one could find any Muslims doing the same thing. My guess now is that they searched the internet with the keywords "Muslim philanthropy Africa" and nothing showed up.
Of course not. Muslim philanthropy is enormous, but from what I now see, a great deal more organized and self-sustaining.
First: a brief definition of Muslims. I am trying to understand the various groups. See boxes on right. Please forgive me, my Muslim brothers and sisters, for my errors. I am in the process of setting up interviews for a section called MJoTAtalks Muslim Peacemakers.
A story has been all over the New York Times this week of a Christian pastor taking his wife and 3 children to Mozambique for the adventure of their lifetimes, which he calls a mission to make self-sufficient rescued women who had been forced into prostitution as children.
His approach was totally Christian and totally dependent on the continuing shouldering of costs by American business owners. He arranged for a woman in Ohio to collect used bras, business owners who drive trucks and ship containers donated transportation, and his rescued ladies had something to sell in the marketplace in Mozambique.
Personally, I would have preferred that the money raised and spent be given to a finance-savvy leader of the ladies to buy a farm or build a factory so the ladies could create what they sell, and totally cuts the ties to the beaming Christians to whom they now owe an enormous debt.
So how do Muslim groups I have identified do things differently?
When I was in Kenya, I was driven past a beautiful hospital in Nairobi, called the Aga Khan Hospital. One of my students wrote an article about it which you can link to on the Kenya page on this site.
The Aga Khan Foundation is Muslim philanthropy at its finest. It not only is a world class hospital, it gives specialist training and jobs to Kenyan medical graduates. Keeping them in Kenya, rather than cleaning floors and driving taxis in New York.
And this is not all they do. When I was at the Council for Africa conference on healthcare in Nov 2008, I met a man who organized an Aga Khan Foundation Ugandan pharmaceutical company that manufactured drugs for Uganda. In Uganda.
Kenya also has a viable news media, and I visited the building that houses it when I was in Kenya, the tallest building in Nairobi. Also because of the Aga Khan.
What I love most in what I do is how grace and love sneaks up on me and smiles on my face when I am looking elsewhere.
During the CACCI Martin Luther King jr celebration in Borough Hall, a row of mostly hijab-covered pale-skinned young women caught my attention. They listened respectfully and attentively during the speeches of pain and triumph of sons and daughters of Africa. And at the end, they were introduced by a Turkish diplomat as students at the Amity School in Brooklyn; who had traveled to Haiti to volunteer with the rebuilding efforts in Haiti.
Daughter of Rwanda Marie Claudine Mukumabano invited me to witness the presentations by 2 panels organized around the idea that women of faith can stop and prevent violence. The organizers were Muslim groups at the United Nations yesterday, Feb 12, 2013.
And for a second time, I came across the Peace Islands Institute.
During summer and fall 2012, I was exploring the possibility of working with a 5th Avenue printing broker. On one of my trips out of the office for food and sunshine, I saw their window: Peace Islands Institute has a branch one block from Saul's office on 5th Avenue: close to the Marble Collegiate Church, and not far from the Empire State Building.
The Peace Islands Institute is an organization of non-proselytizing Muslim philanthropists whose mission is to do good and create islands of peace. They have my attention: I am trying to learn more about these quiet philanthropists, who are not trying to convert anyone and doing enormous good.
