Survé Philanthropies hosts farewell lunch for Hajj pilgrims

Cape Town - Addressed and acknowledged as special hand-picked guests of Allah Ta’ala, a group of Hajj pilgrims were treated to a farewell lunch by Survé Philanthropies.

For a second year in a row, Survé Philanthropies has been sponsoring Hajj pilgrims through partnering with Rihlatul Umr, Lillah Foundation, and Khidmatul Awaam facilitating the holy pilgrimage.

A farewell dinner was hosted at the Islamia College hall on Saturday to mark the momentous occasion.

Rihlatul Umr founder and chairperson Najwa Mohamed-Luddy said the organisation assists women who are not financially able to perform their Hajj.

“Within the last three years of establishing Rihlatul Umr, we have financially assisted 48 women in total. In the year 2022, we managed to assist six women, two of which were full packages; that was the first and only time we could manage to do that. In the year 2023, we managed to assist 16 women and this year, we humbly say beautiful, deserving 26 women for Hajj 2024,” Mohamed-Luddy said.

Lillah Foundation’s Nasieba Jamie said Hajj assistance is but one element of the organisation’s work. Lillah Foundation also assists with feeding initiatives.

“And alhamdulillah, with Dr Survé’s assistance, coming on board and assisting organisations such as ourselves and Rihlatul Umr, has made it possible for us to assist even more hujjaaj. Our criteria has always been pensioners and those who have been saving but just can’t quite reach that gap. So alhamdulillah, this is our third year assisting hujjaaj and our second year partnering with Survé Philanthropies.”

One director and volunteer at Khidmatul Awaam, Adam Jainodien, said: “Shukran so much for this opportunity. Shukran so much for what this has meant and we definitely would like to do this year on year and that we establish this as a legacy of South Africa, that we can keep on doing this with Dr Survé, into the future, beyond our times into the times of our children and those we leave behind.”

Survé Philanthropies founder Dr Iqbal Survé said: “Before we formalised this programme, which started last year, I think we’ve sent about close to 50 people to go on Hajj before this particular programme. I think now we’re up to almost another 50, so that’s about 100. I made a commitment last year that we will increase our commitment. I’m making a commitment again this year that we’ll increase our commitment again next year.”

Around 20 pilgrims were assisted for this year’s hajj on 14-19 June.

“I’ve always worked on the basis that we mustn’t reinvent the wheel. We must work with partners and we have done so in our philanthropic programmes throughout the world, not just with this particular programme.”

Dr Survé said he wants to expand the programme beyond Cape Town to other parts of the country, where people are unable to afford to undertake the pilgrimage.

shakirah.thebus@inl.co.za

Cape Argus