While a number of service providers are engaged in providing community and social welfare the Fatimah Foundation takes a holistic approach to optimise the benefits accruing to the communities that it serves.
The Foundation recognises the diverse cultural practices and as such structures its projects and programmes to ensure that they cater to people from a wide range of ethnicities and backgrounds. These include migrants, recent settlers and refugees.
This charitable organisation has developed skills to care for women and families of the Islamic faith. Networking with other community organisations and government agencies is central to these programmes.
The Foundation has the ability to provide crisis support to people including Halal food and culturally appropriate clothing. It also helps women requiring urgent shelter for safety reasons, and those in need of pastoral services and advocacy requirements.
Other programmes of the Foundation relate to the young and the elderly, providing activity and information based services. Families noticing stress in relationships are able to access early intervention and support with a Zero Tolerance attitude towards sexual and domestic violence.
The Foundation President Waheed Khan said that education programmes can be tailored for mainstream providers to suit the needs of communities.
“We also assist government agencies and NGOs to provide improved services to the Muslim population. We have a holistic approach, focused on the outcomes to meet the needs of the family,” he said.
The Foundation began from a house in Papatoetoe in South Auckland in 2009 and later shifted to a shed to cater to the increasing number of women accessing its programmes and services.
‘PantryPak Partnership is a preventative and intervention initiative to help abused and needy women with children. The strategy aims on the one hand to enable the victims to overcome the adverse effects of family break up and on the other assist couples and families to ward off differences and opinions and live together.
PantryPak Partnership began as a preventative and intervention initiative that operated from an adjacent shed on the property. The strategy was to help abused or needy Muslim women with children to cope with some of the affects of a family break up or family change. The strategy also helped to keep couples and families together by relieving some of the stress factors in the family due to financial hardship in the economic environment.
It is now known as ‘PantryPak Halal Food Bank Service South Auckland,’ the only Halal Food Bank in Manukau.
‘ConvertConnect’ is another support services provided to women and their families who have converted to Islam.
