In the face of the economic crisis rocking the country, a newly established foundation, New Crescent Charity has taken steps to ameliorate the situation by supporting petty traders with cash and vocational equipments worth over Three Million Naira.
The foundation, an arm of New Crescent International Travels Ltd, doled out different amount of money, ranging from Sixty Thousand Naira to Two Hundred Thousand Naira, as well as equipments such as cloth weaving machines, stoning machines and vulcanizing machines among others to 21 beneficiaries at the Distribution Exercise held at Ajao Estate, Lagos, over the weekend.
In her welcome address, the Chief Executive Officer, CEO, of the Foundation, Mrs Shogbesan Hassanat, stated that the prevailing harsh economic situation in the country inspired the founder, New Crescent International Travels Ltd, to float the Charity Organisation in order to help the needy and reduce poverty in the society.
According to her, “The brain behind the Foundation is mainly due to the trust we get from people. We always have people giving us money and other beneficial materials over the years. To uphold this trust, we decided that it should be a thing of letting them know how we distribute it and to give other people the opportunity of entrusting whatever they want to give to people to us, then trying to give back to the community and averagely relieving people from poverty level.
Speaking further, Mrs. Shogbesan said the Foundation was established to reduce the general poverty level, assist people with health challenges within their capacity, adding that, “our mission is to assist people educationally, like sponsorship or scholarship, then assist the less privileged with food, clothes, money and and other beneficial materials”
“The reason New Crescent Charity was introduced is to reduce the level of poverty, assist people health wise, in case of hospital bills, if not beyond our capacity, to assist people educationally, in the form of sponsorship or scholarship, then to the less privileged in terms of food and other things to be distributed to them.”
Explaining the criteria for the selection of beneficiaries, she said, “We look at people engaging in one or two things and look at a way of improving or assisting them to improve their businesses or equipping them in where they are lacking in the area of equipments, or where we can assist them with capital to make them improve and sustain their businesses.
“The number of people that we really distributed to today (Sunday) are just 21 people, from the lowest of N60,000 to N200,000. Also, we distributed equipments such as cloth weaving machines, weaving machine, stoning machine and vulcanizing machines to them. The total amount distributed is about N3 million”, she noted.
The CEO therefore called on the beneficiaries to judiciously use what has been given to them, so that other less privileged in the society can benefit in the nearest future.
Some of the beneficiaries who spoke with Muslim News at the event expressed their happiness.
Mal. Abdulrasaq Ajayi Yusuf, a Patent Medicine dealer and beneficiary of the sum of N200,000, noted that the money given would boost his business. He prayed for the donors and the organisation.
According to him, “Today I have been assisted by the New Crescent charity Foundation with two hundred thousand naira to boost my business and I tell them Jazakallahu Khayran. May Allah reward them abundantly.”
About how he got to know about the opportunity, Mal. Yusuf said, “I just saw on a platform as usual that an organisation wants to assist petty traders and I was wondering if it’s for petty traders for it to have been sent to WhatsApp platforms. Definitely, it is something bigger than petty.
“So, I clicked on it and I was asked to obtain the form. Fortunately, the form even gave me a reply and I could see everybody that applied there. Later, we were called for an interview and I was very happy with the way the interview went, likewise today. I’m very happy.”
For Mrs Tijani Taiwo Faidat who runs a boutique business, the initiative restored the hope in her that Nigeria could be better while appreciating the sincerity and fairness of the selection processes.
“Alhamdullilah Robil Alamin. It’s actually one of my aunties that informed me that there’s a charity that would love to assist some small businesses, and I decided to give it a shot.
“Basically, from the beginning of the application to the interview till today, all I just derived and appreciated is the sincerity and love for the MD, because I think anybody can just give you any money and you just could divert it to anything, especially in Nigeria where we have a lot of challenges.
“But for her to decide to give some petty traders, goes a whole long way to reassure us that Nigeria can still be better when we give back to the society by helping people. With little, we can actually help the other person grow more. That’s all I can just say about this initiative.
“I was given the sum of N150,000. It’s actually a very huge money and like I said, it goes beyond the money for me. It actually teaches me to give back to the people, to have the love of people at heart, because that’s exactly what we saw today”, she noted.
The Chairman of New Crescent International Travels, Alhaji Sulaiman Ogunmuyiwa was also at the disbursement exercise to assist the Charity Foundation team.
While thanking donors for their rewarding and numerous donations, he reminded the beneficiaries of the significance of Zakat as one of the pillars of Islam, thereby enjoining them to make effective use of what they have so that they can also be qualified to pay Zakat in the nearest future.
Meanwhile, renowned financial expert, Mr Shaffi Olabanjo sensitised the beneficiaries on the importance of record-keeping in every big or petty trade. Details of his presentation will be treated in a separate news story.
