Old woman gripping her head talking with a Zakat Foundation member.

Health & Wellbeing

Zakat Foundation is leading critical projects to heal bodies, minds, and souls among the neediest.

And whoever saves a life, it shall be rewarded as though he has saved the life of all humankind.

 THE QURAN

Such is the premium God has placed on human life. So we have taken our mission of ministering to health and wellbeing (comfort and happiness) in the world from there. Yet the monstrous growth of global poverty now robs nearly half of humanity – more than 3 billion people who live on $2.50 a day or less – of both these God-given rights and pursuits. Half these poor — 1.3 billion — are utterly destitute, living on just $1.25 a day or less. Innocent children make up a third of these impoverished, a shocking 22,000 of whom pay every day for our neglect with their lives. Some 805 million of our fellow human beings don’t have enough food for the day. Another 750 million can’t get clean drinking water. About 2,300 die daily because of the lack of sanitation and hand hygiene this lack brings about. It is shocking that in the midst of our vast wealth, abundant food production, and epidemic obesity, hunger is the leading cause of death in our world, when less than a fourth of the earnings of just the 100 richest people on earth could end global poverty.

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Political violence drives much of this indigence, with 2 billion people – 420 million of whom are children – living in fragile or conflict-affected zones, creating as much as 80 percent of all humanitarian need on earth.In the face of this, we have created and sponsored innovative projects to heal bodies, minds, and souls among these most needy, like the joint Medstar Georgetown University Hospital and Palestinian Medical Education Initiative. We sponsor partners of this mental health program to train Palestinian school administrators, teachers, staff, and students in mental health awareness and support strategies, which reach outside schools to parents and relatives.

At home, we helped found and continue to support the Khalil Center, a psychological and spiritual community wellness center program, with mental health clinics in Chicago, the Bay area, Los Angeles, New York, and Toronto, and also offering WebTherapy, to reach people across the continent. We’ve also created Khalil Center mental health service cooperation understandings with Ibn Khaldun University, Ihsan Academy, Zahraa University and other institutions in Turkey. Khalil Center also provides community crisis-training programs for counseling volunteers, offers onsite mental health awareness and education programs, trains community leaders, imams, educators and counselors with first responders’ mental health training, and monitors a growing people-in-crisis hotline.

Our Sigharuna-Kibaruna (Our Little Ones, Our Elders) free clinic in Hatay province, Turkey, treats disabled Syrian refugee children for sensory and brain trauma, including hearing, speech, and eye organ and function problems from the war. We support its doctors, specialists, teachers and administrators. While in Jordan, we’ve partnered with United Muslim Relief’s Medical Mission for Vulnerable Families composed of both Syrian refugees and host communities in Jordan to treat underserved populations, including Iraqi and Yemeni refugees, for primary health consultations. 

In MaliBangladesh, Kenya, and Sudan our Health Outreach Programs sponsor community clinics to provide health services to vulnerable, impoverished, and remote community members with no other access to medical care, especially for maternity, women’s, and newborn’s needs; general health; immunizations; and chronic illness. In addition, we provide equipment, medicines, and medical professional training for Basic and Intermediate Life Support, Infection Control, Communication Skills, Professionalism and Patient Safety, and pre- and post-natal mothers unit management.

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Your donations are tax exempt under the section 170 of the 501(c)(3) section of the IRS code. Zakat Foundation of America Tax EIN: 36-4476244. For more information on tax exempt status please refer to our IRS Code letter. For more information on tax exempt status please refer to this letter.