Grab development opportunities, Muslims told

With the availability of a myriad of resources geared at improving the social and economic lives of Kenyans, it is important that Muslims also increase their stake by participating more in these programmes.

Prof. Muhammad Said Abdallah, the chairman of the Kenya Association of Muslim Medical Practitioners (KAMMP) regretted that the community was not reaping fully from these programmes due to their little participation.

He said the government had committed millions of shillings in projects such as the Constituency Bursary Fund (CDF), Youth Development Fund, Women Development Fund and the AIDS Fund but not many Muslims were grabbing these opportunities to enhance on their lives.
While some of these funds had interest connotations, a factor which was preventing access to the funds, he said the onus was upon Muslims to go back to the initiators to see to it that the concerns of the community were taken care of.

Prof. Muhammad who is Nephrologist at the Aga Khan University Hospital also spoke on the need of enhancing capacity building skills in proposal writing which he said was a key condition to access these funds.

Speaking during a presentation of education bursaries by Ummah Foundation on Saturday, the Professor appealed to Muslims to work together to bring to an end the colonial legacy of the informal settlements of Majengos saying that there was a need to improve on the lives of the residents. “The residents have resigned to this fate but we need to go there and tell them that this could change,” he said.

Prof. Muhammad also spoke on the importance of giving back to the community saying that helping others was not only an Islamic obligation encouraged by Islam but was also a way of appreciating Allah’s blessings on an individual. “This is not only limited to money but you can also give knowledge, experience, skills and a lot of things among Allah’s blessings,” he said. He said community social responsibility programmes should be encouraged to uplift the social and economic status of the less fortunate members of the society.

During the event, 25 students in Universities, tertiary institutions and secondary schools received education bursaries to assist them complete their education. The students were drawn from areas which included Machakos, Eldoret, Kakamega, Nairobi among other areas.

More than 400 students have benefited from the Ummah Education Bursary programmes which among other objectives aims at assisting deserving students in completing their education.

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