From the news desk

IHATA facing difficulties as international donor cuts funding

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The IHATA Shelter for Abused Women and Children is facing major financial difficulties as their operational funding from an international donor will be cut. The shelter serves the community with various programmes that uplift abused women and children. The global funding climate for Non-Governmental Organisations who work with softer skills has been a challenge for many NGO’s and the shelter has not been immune to these difficulties.

Currently the shelter is in need of corporate donors and donations in order to stay afloat. Nuraan Osman, director for the organisation said that they received news from their Australian donors last week Monday informing them of the operational funding cuts.

“Last Monday in our usual communication with our donor we discovered that it might be challenging for them to continue to fund the shelter considering that they too are funding dependent and have to consider their own operations,” said Osman.

[pullquote] “Last Monday in our usual communication with our donor we discovered that it might be challenging for them to continue to fund the shelter considering that they too are funding dependent and have to consider their own operations,” [/pullquote]

The IHATA shelter opened their doors in 2006 to women from all religions and races – the shelter has cared for these women through means of counselling, empowering, and basic necessities such as food, shelter and clothes. The centre also goes beyond their core mandate.

“We do offer a lot more than your standard shelter in that we aim to be a be a nerve centre for the community of Heideveld and in uplifting abused women we also take the opportunity to uplift all the other target groups linked to women… so the donor would cover all of that,” said Osman.

Without Operational Funding the Shelter would have Difficulties doing their work

The shelter is highly dependent on the operational funding.

“It certainly is very tragic situation if we didn’t have operational funds, small programmes could continue but how do you continue programmes without staff?”

Explaining what could happen if they didn’t receive this funding, Osman said, “The bottom line is if we didn’t have money to pay the staff obviously they would leave because they have families to feed. If we didn’t have money to pay the rent abused women and children would have to either go back into abusive situations or the street… so it’s quite a dire situation if the fundamentals are not paid for.”

In order to continue the work they do, Osman said that donations would make a significant difference.

“It would be phenomenal if the community would kindly donate what they have. If people are willing to donate meals, toiletries packs and some of the needs of the children, we’d be very grateful.”

[pullquote]“We believe or work is phenomenal, impactful and important in changing the lives of people in Heideveld and so we’re asking the community with whatever they would be able to contribute, we would be grateful.”[/pullquote]

Osman also emphasized the need for corporate funding and the kind of difference that contribution would make.

She has asked the community to put her in touch with corporate donors who are willing to fund the kind of work they do.

“We believe or work is phenomenal, impactful and important in changing the lives of people in Heideveld and so we’re asking the community with whatever they would be able to contribute, we would be grateful.”

Anyone interested in supporting the organisation can visit the IHATA shelter website to make a difference.

For the full interview with Nuraan Osman, click here:


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