{"id":18552,"date":"2018-10-15T12:26:27","date_gmt":"2018-10-15T12:26:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=18552"},"modified":"2018-10-15T12:26:27","modified_gmt":"2018-10-15T12:26:27","slug":"irans-new-breed-of-charities-on-poverty-frontline","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=18552","title":{"rendered":"Iran\u2019s new breed of charities on poverty frontline"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

\nTEHRAN: At an outreach center in southern Tehran, teenagers are learning to be journalists, while upstairs their mothers are fine-tuning their sewing skills and rushing to fill an order for hospital uniforms.
The brand-new center in the working-class neighborhood of Shahr-e Rey caters to hundreds of struggling families and Afghan refugees.
It\u2019s a relatively new approach for Iran, where social welfare has often been left to informal groups based around the bazaar and mosque or fallen to large-scale government-controlled organizations.
Today, privately-run charities are emerging, with managers, targets and buzzwords such as \u201cempowerment\u201d and \u201cskills-training,\u201d and funded by wealthy business people who have made fortunes in booming industries such as private health care.
This center is run by the ILIA Foundation, created by social workers and members of the Nikan Hospital Group, who have partnered with UN refugee and health agencies to help around 1,000 families from deprived backgrounds.
For now these groups can only reach a small number of those in need but supporters say it is providing a model for future social work in Iran.
At one of the sewing machines is 27-year-old Somareh Ghazvani, a second-generation refugee \u2014 one of around 3 million Afghans who have fled decades of conflict across the border.
\u201cIt was a surprise to find this place. The conditions are much better than other places I have worked, so I\u2019m very happy,\u201d she said.
In the computer room, 16-year-old Masoumeh is working with InDesign and Photoshop as part of her summer classes in journalism.
\u201cOur families have really counted on this center. If we go to classes somewhere else, the fees are so high we can\u2019t afford it,\u201d she said.
One of the pioneers of the new approach to charity is the Imam Ali Popular Students Relief Society, which was recognized by the UN in 2010 and has built a network of 12,000 volunteers helping Iran\u2019s poorest children.
A recent football tournament it organized for street kids was a reminder of Iran\u2019s diversity, as Azeris, Baluchis, Kurds and many others were thrown together on the pitch in Tehran.
\u201cThe only choice for most of these kids in their neighborhoods is violence, poverty and misery. We have tried to give them self-confidence through sports to improve their lives,\u201d said Meysam Vahdei, head of sports for the foundation.
Ten-year-old Obeidollah had traveled since 3:00 a.m. from one of Iran\u2019s poorest cities \u2014 Sarbaz in southeastern Sistan-Baluchistan province \u2014 and, inevitably, dreams of being the next Cristiano Ronaldo.
The foundation brought him to Tehran so he could participate in the tournament in a sport he loves.
\u201cSome charity workers came to our city square. They saw me do a backflip and said \u2018Wow! What a boy\u2019, and now I\u2019m here in Tehran playing football,\u201d he said, excitedly.
Official data on poverty is hard to pin down in Iran.
The labor ministry said 800,000 households were eligible for government support because they earned below the poverty line of seven million rials (around $160) a month, according to a report in January by the Financial Tribune.
The English-language newspaper cited prominent economist Hossein Raghfar as saying some 12 million Iranians lived in absolute poverty, in a country with a population of around 80 million.
Faced with mounting economic woes, President Hassan Rouhani has introduced welfare cuts and other austerity measures since coming to power in 2013.
The government was already struggling to support the poor before the recent return of US sanctions \u2014 after Washington withdrew from a 2015 nuclear deal between Iran and world powers \u2014 which has sent prices soaring and threatens to take a huge chunk out of the budget this year.
That has put more pressure on charities and private donors, and encouraged the more modern approach to charity work.
\u201cWe need to help these kids at an early stage of life to get them on the right path and help break the chain of poverty in their families,\u201d said Reza Taghdir, a doctor with the high-end Nikan hospital group and a director for the ILIA Foundation.
It marks a change from the old ways of doing things, said one of ILIA\u2019s promoters, who asked not to be named.
\u201cIn the past, some old guys would get near to death and start worrying about the afterlife, so they would hand out a load of money to build something in their name. It was really just about status and was not very organized,\u201d he said.
\u201cNow it\u2019s much more professional, the donors are younger and much more concerned to find real solutions to problems in society.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

TEHRAN: At an outreach center in southern Tehran, teenagers are learning to be journalists, while upstairs their mothers are fine-tuning their sewing skills and rushing to fill an order for hospital uniforms.The brand-new center in the working-class neighborhood of Shahr-e Rey caters to hundreds of struggling families and Afghan refugees.It\u2019s a relatively new approach for…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":18553,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-18552","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-middle_east_news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18552","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=18552"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18552\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/18553"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=18552"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=18552"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=18552"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}