Together We Stand

[ 57 ] support reform policy in the community. Future development requires activation of cooperative practices and volunteering activ- ities in the context of government policies. The work of volunteer charities carries a wide range of skills, capacities and abilities that may help governments to perform more focused, efficient and transparent reform programmes and policies with a broader base of participation, especially if we believe in the following facts: • The state alone cannot provide social services. Accordingly, it needs to employ volunteer efforts to increase the benefits derived from these services. • The initiatives delivered by charity associations in the domains of social services provision should serve public policy at the state level. • Volunteer charity work is a social commitment that needs community support in a way that dispels fears and contributes to the establishment of new relations to build trust, dialogue and collaboration with different community groups. • Contemporary societal variables and events require volunteer charities to act untraditionally in a way commensurate with the actual renewable needs of the community. The employees of such charities should be trained to participate positively and create encouraging and attractive means to achieve institutional support and efficiency. • Volunteer charities need professional and specialized competencies to support networking efforts between charities at different levels and all institutions of society, to be able to undertake their role in the reform process. The service provided by humanitarian organizations has tran- scended the concept and mechanisms of charity and relief to embody the concept of empowerment and reinforcement. Then, after prominent social and humanitarian development, such organizations have started providing their services based on the concept of rights as the human being has become the centre of development and its strategies revolve around him or her. The concept of human development that was adopted by the United Nations at the beginning of the 1990s is strongly linked to rights. Accordingly, social service process is no longer of a charitable or humanitarian nature. Rather, providing services by governmental or non-governmental organizations has become a genuine right to community groups and not a mere charity service provided by one charity or another. Moreover, one of the social responsibility criteria of the private sector is to deliver social development programmes. This has been adopted in the local legislation of many countries by incorporating inter- national human rights into the domestic laws and constitutions of these countries in order to achieve social welfare. Subsequently, NGOs working in social service fields have started to develop laws and regulations to protect the interests of poor and alleviated people. NGOs have worked in different social services fields including social affairs, youth, women, the unemployed, agriculture and health, at a professional and specialized level either through involving specialists or acquir- ing and accumulating experience and field knowledge. Accordingly, it is important to adapt the controversial link between programmes and activities delivered to marginal- ized and deprived people to help their social integration and developmental participation and the perspective of human development. This can be accomplished through overcoming the concept of relief and philanthropic work and embracing the comprehensive concept of development based on the twin pillars of rights and empowerment and the concept of equal citizenship for all regardless of religion, gender, race and social origin, to access resources and opportunities equally through regulations that empower such groups based on the International Bill of Human Rights. Social service is defined as means, methods, activities and programmes delivered to marginalized social groups to assist them in keeping pace with life improvement by overcoming all obstacles limiting their ability to integrate in the context of economic, social, cultural and political growth. The World Summit for Social Development in 2001 made recommendations to enhance the contribution of volun- teer and charity work in social development, improve social solidarity, provide social welfare services, empower those deprived and prone to injury, and increase awareness of major and rapid changes in many areas of life to make charity work a major source of reform and reconstruction. To conclude, the role of humanitarian institutions is highly important to empower marginalized groups. Thus, the International Islamic Relief Organizations of Saudi Arabia (IIROSA) is keen to transcend the idea of relief and philanthropy and to embrace the idea of charitable development in order to achieve sustainability and build capacities. Therefore, IIROSA adapts the slogan ‘Relief – Development – Rehabilitation’ with an aim to shift its beneficiaries from the cycle of poverty and deprivation to the horizons of self-sufficiency and development. IIROSA’s vision is reflected by its projects, including its giant orphan sponsorship programme, scholarship programme for needy students, vocational training centres, literacy and adult education programmes, widows’ community centres, micro- financing and productive families’ sponsorship projects and supporting disabled rehabilitation centres. All the said projects are listed under the ‘empowerment of marginalized groups’ category as part of IIROSA’s belief that this is one of the impor- tant roles of humanitarian organizations. A young girl collects clean water at a water point built by IIROSA, Saudi Arabia Image: Mr. Ehssan Saleh Taieb, Secretary General of IIROSA T ogether W e S tand