Hi! My name is Ilham, I am a mother of 2 from North London. I was born in Kenya but came to the UK when I got married over 27 years ago. Since the war in Yemen started in 2015, my husband and I really wanted to help the people living in poverty there; but we didn’t know how to begin.
One day, our friend Majibur Rehman Choudary invited us to a fundraising event for Nessa Foundation. He started Nessa Foundation in Bangladesh to build an orphanage, which Alhamdulliah has steadily grown over the years, and raise funds for a variety of charitable projects worldwide. While sitting in this event, seeing how just a few ordinary people with ambition and drive to succeed can make a difference in the world, it gave my husband and I the push to start Yahya Foundation.
So, with his guidance, we started our journey. We found orphans in Yemen that needed support and sponsored them by providing their guardians money for living expenses. Our family member Hani Uqba that lives in Yemen, volunteered to help us by visiting the households regularly to check on the children and provide updates on their progress.
We contacted family & friends and told them what we wanted to do, and through their support and donations we were able to secure the funds to sustain 4 children for the year (now two years on, we are sponsoring 6 children and hoping to increase by another two this year).
One of the children we sponsored (Fares, aged 6 )
Fares with our volunteer, Hani
Since then, the momentum has continued and support has come from all over the world. We have worked on several different projects like providing Water Tanks in Kenya and distributing Family Food Parcels in Yemen, which I will blog about in posts to come.
Inshallah, our goal, with your support and prayers, is to continue helping as many people in need as possible, whenever we can, as directly as possible.