Habib Omar of Tarim/YEMEN visits MAA office
On Wednesday 6 May 2009, Habib Umar bin HAFEEDTH, reknown scholar, Founder & Dean of Dar al-Mustafa (Yemen), and Founder of local NGO Al-Rafah Charitable Society (Yemen) visited MAA offices to meet staff and board. Habib Umar was in the midst of his Australian tour giving lectures and sermons, in venues packed to capacity, at various locations along the eastern seaboard's capital cities.
MAA and Al-Rafah Charitable Society (ARCS) first partnered during MAA's deployment of a team of medical and health volunteers to Tarim (Yemen) on a tour of duty to various local clinics and hospitals (July 2008). It was ARCS which hosted and coordinated the deployment of the team during their 2 weeks stay, and together worked almost around the clock attending to various health and medical consultations and procedures for the needs of the local populace.
Habib Omar's visit to the MAA offices was most timely in that Funding and Disbursement agreements between MAA and ARCS were discussed and then officially signed-off, sealing the commitment by MAA to ship a container of Qurban FoodAid to Tarim (Yemen) for distribution by ARCS to the needy, esp those still beleagured by the Nov 2008 floods. The WFP country director in Yemen, a member of the Local Council Tarim District, and the CSSW a local NGO well known to MAA, all stated their concern for the ongoing challenges of food and aid insufficiency to the IDPs of the Nov 2008 floods. Hopefully MAA's Qurban FoodAid together with ARCS's local connections will see a bridging of the gap.
Disbursement agreements between MAA and ARCS were also discussed and officially signed-off regarding funding assistance towards the development of an Orphanage / Orphanage-Waqf.
Expressions of mutual admiration for the works and efforts of the two organisations were aired, as well as prospects beyond the past and current joint initiatives. Indeed, the closing topic discussed touched on how local adaptations to land use and agriculture practice, using Permaculture principles, could stave off the looming global problem of food insecurity. The interesting point noted was the striking affinity between Permaculture ethics and Islamic ethics, eg the interconnected design of the one Cosmos (tawhid), humans on earth as Trustees or Stewards (amanat), and serving as Custodians to a higher order (khilafatullah).