The National Zakat Agency (Baznas) visited Saudi Arabia's King Salman Humanitarian Aid and Relief Center (KSRelief) to pursue collaboration in improving Indonesian people's welfare.
"On May 16, we had a meeting with KSRelief to host discussion on collaboration that will be pursued in the future as a collective effort to improve public welfare, particularly in Indonesia," Baznas Head, Noor Achmad, stated on Tuesday.
KSRelief is a humanitarian relief agency established by King Salman bin Abdulaziz Al-Saud.
Achmad explained that the collaboration had been established for a while, with the main objective of supplying food during Ramadhan.
He also noted that the agency had introduced to KSRelief some innovative and productive programs that it had initiated for primarily improving the people's well-being.
"Thank God, Baznas is entrusted by KSRelief to allocate their aid. We also hope that this collaboration is not only done in the Ramadhan program but also through other programs, particularly on the education program," he remarked.
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He highlighted that 36 thousand children were orphaned due to COVID-19. Hence, the agency pursues collaboration with KSRelief in order to enable the orphans to gain access to education.
KSRelief responded positively to the agency's initiative of a poverty eradication program as well as the program to allow access to education for children, who lost parents to COVID-19, he affirmed.
"Hopefully, the collaboration between Baznas and KSRelief can be maintained and developed, as a collective effort to improve ummah's welfare. We also expressed our gratitude for KSRelief that has entrusted allocation of King Salman's aid through Baznas," he elaborated.
Assistant supervisor general for operations and programs at KSRelief Ahmed bin Ali Al-Baiz stated that his administration disbursed over US$73 million for 38 programs, covering various aspects, to aid Indonesians.
On the occasion, the two agencies discussed about latest developments of humanitarian efforts in Indonesia as well as aid that will be given to Indonesians living below the poverty line.
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