Poverty Alleviation
Poverty Alleviation & Social Welfare Programmes

Our work encompasses a short-medium and long term strategy in a comprehensive fight against poverty.

1. Basic Needs Provision

• Short-Medium Term
  • Education Scholarships
  • Humanitarian & Medical Care Programmes
• Long Term
  • Establish Social Welfare Systems In Developing Countries

2. Poverty Awareness Campaigns

• Debt Elimination & Usury-Free Loans
  Debt Relief is not enough. There must be an end to the unjust economic conditions attached to debt relief and for full debt cancellation for the world's poorest countries. Most loans are usury (interest) based which in reality have multiplied the third world debt rather than assist the poor countries to develop. We require the rich countries, financial institutions and multi-nationals to invest ethically on an equity based model and thereby take a pro-active role in their economic development, rather than enslave and entrap them further through usury based loans.

• Trade Justice
  TFI is calling for Trade Justice, not Free Trade. Governments and International Bodies must stop pushing poor countries to open up their economies, and respect their right to decide on trade policies that would help end poverty and become self-sufficient.

• Prevent Funding of Illegal Wars - Peace Tax, not War Tax
  Most of the public have been against illegal pre-emptive wars such as those in the middle east, Vietnam, etc but due to the way the tax system works their hard earned money is also used to finance these ventures. Legitimate defence of our nations or liberating the poor, oppressed people such as those in Rwanda through international forums is perfectly acceptable but foreign wars whereby we are not directly under threat at all or they have been organized for personal motives (oil, financial gain) is not. We need to reform existing tax systems so that in such situations so we can ensure our hard earned money is not used to kill innocent people and instead can be directed towards better causes e.g. reducing poverty, providing medical care for elderly.

• Control Arms Trade & Prevent Military Conflicts
  The richest nations also happen to be the largest arms traders in the world. They happily fund oppressive regimes and sell arms to them, even though their own people are dying through poverty. We need to control the production & sales of arms generally incl weapons of mass destruction (nuclear, biological, etc), as well as specifically to oppressive regimes.  We must have zero tolerance on this issue and not allow a priviliged few to dictate an unfair balance in their favour at the expense of the majority community - the rules must be the same for all nations, rich or poor.

• Establishing Social Welfare Systems
  A comprehensive solution requires the establishment of national and international social welfare systems which will guarantee and provide basic needs for the worlds poor wherever they may be. We must work to achieve this collectively through reformation of governance and resource management systems.

• Climate Change & Environmental Protection

The poor will suffer the most from the rising disastrous consequences

• Reformation of International Bodies

In order to make national & international bodies more accountable, fair and effective there must be a reformation of existing organisations such as the OIC, IDB, UN, IMF & World Bank. This work is ongoing to highlight their weaknesses, strengths & how they must be improved to work on the behalf of the poor.

• Sign our On-line 'Campaign for the Poor' Petitions

Other useful websites: www.isaartrust.com