THE Government of Sudan granted free-lease land to the Muslim Hands School of Excellence. The British Muslim Community (BMC) delegation headed by Lord Nazir Ahmed visited the Muslim Hands School of Excellence on 27 July 2008. After witnessing the performance of the School and its other activities, Lord Ahmed promised to talk to the government of Sudan to grant the School free-lease land. While the delegation was still at the School premises, information came from the Ministry of Social Affairs that the Sudanese authorities would grant the free-lease land for the Muslim Hands School of Excellence. Muslim Hands School of Excellence in Omdurman, Sudan, is an extraordinary educational institution which mainly looks after orphans and provides free-quality education services to this section of the affected population. The school was established in July 2004 by Muslim Hands International, a charitable organization based in Nottingham, UK. It started with 70 orphans in 2004, and now there are more than 250 orphan boys as well as girls. Besides the orphans, there is another category of pupils in the school. The non-orphan needy students are also admitted to the School for two reasons, first, they are needy and, secondly, the school has them in order to study living among the orphans. The third category of students in the school are from rich families, who are less than 6% of the total number. They are given the opportunity to study in the School so that the orphan students never have the feelings that they are isolated or degraded as inferior to others. The School of Excellence provides all kinds of services that the student needs in the school including clothes, uniforms and food – all for free. It provides the students with everything that they may need at the School: Air conditioned classes; school uniforms as well as shoes, school bags, books, notebooks and other items of stationery. The School also provides breakfast, healthcare, educational visits and tours, close follow-up, both at the school and at home, cash assistance to families of students, Eid gifts and excursions. Seven rented buses take the students to and from the School. So far as the students are concerned, 5% of the children are orphans from two different provinces, Ombada and Omdurman, who hail from eight different places in the two provinces. Besides the school staff, there are children supervisors who look after students in the School and in their buses to and from the School. One of the privileges in this School is the school feeding program. In Darfur Muslim Hands also runs an orphan school in the refugee camps in Darfur, which was visited by the delegation led by Lord Ahmed. The orphan children recited verses of the Holy Qu'ran and also some Islamic songs. Lord Ahmed was impressed by their recitation and asked the chairman of the Muslim Hands, Syed Lakhate Hasanain, who accompanied the delegation, to provide properly-built school premises. Muslim Hands promised to do that. After visiting the camps, Lord Ahmed called upon the international community and the Muslim charities to do more for the children and families living in the camps. 94 percent of the charity organizations involved in the camps are non-Muslims and only six percent of them are run by the Muslims while the affected children are 100% Muslim. “If the people from the Muslim countries donate their one-day's salary, the problem of poverty in Darfur will not exist,” said Lord Ahmed. Lord Ahmed also visited the two important football clubs of Darfur, Helal and Marekh and promised to try to arrange to bring them to UK to play at any one of the playgrounds in London or Sheffield. He also promised to give trophy to the winner in his next visit. Lord Ahmed declared that Muslim Hands has agreed to give the players of both clubs a new uniform and special football from Pakistan. __
