Who are Penny Appeal’s charity partners, and why do we work alongside them?

Since the start of Penny Appeal’s life-changing work over a decade ago, we have been dedicated to building strong charity partnerships. We deliver our life-saving work through on-the-ground Penny Appeal staff and volunteers, as well as a combination of large and grassroots charity partners.

Why do we work with local partners, though? Why don’t we paint the world orange, and do it all ourselves? Well, with the combined expertise of Penny Appeal and our partners, we can reach and serve those in need more efficiently, more sensitively and more compassionately. Put simply, ‘1+1=3’ when it comes to our charity partners!

How does Penny Appeal support local partners?

Photo caption: A recently built Solar Panel Water and Power Centre, constructed in partnership with ORCD Afghanistan, to serve 490 Afghan returnee refugees

Our local partners are vital to making sure that effective aid is delivered to difficult to reach and marginalised communities across the globe.

That’s why we’ve developed a collaborative approach to delivering aid alongside our partners; we combine their experience on the ground with our years of expertise to create innovative, life-changing programmes, which neither of us would be able to achieve working alone.

Thanks to our expertise and infrastructure, we’re also able to build local partners up. We offer our partners collaborative support on programmes, grants to help improve and increase their capacity, as well as training in essential development areas such as Safeguarding, Core Humanitarian Standards (CHS), Media and Marketing, Needs Assessments and more.

As charities, it is not only our job to help those in need; it is also our job to champion the other incredible charities and organisations, so that they can continue to help others alongside us.

How do local partners help Penny Appeal?

Photo caption: Penny Appeal working alongside our amazing partner LARA in Mozambique to provide life-saving aid to victims of Cyclone Idai.

Just as we work to support small charity partners, we also learn so much from them. Since we work on a vast array of issues across the globe, we rely on our grassroots partners to give us insight into the culture, struggles and needs of the people we serve.

Local partners are often based within the communities they support, which means that they have built great relationships with a deep understanding of those communities’ struggles and a foundation of trust which, together, we can build upon.

Even something as seemingly simple as a Food Pack requires input from our partners; we need to make sure that the food we include contains local produce which the beneficiaries understand how to cook and which is both comforting, appropriate and nutritious.

Partnerships in practice

Around the world as well as here in the UK, we harness the power of partnerships to improve our programmes and provide the best possible aid to those in need

Here at home, our UK Programmes Coordinator Sarah Ashraf and UK Programmes Officer Shafaq Mir work extremely hard to make sure that aid is delivered where it is needed most; they do everything from packing and delivering Food Parcels, to organising support for our partners such as local food banks and small charities. We also have our in-house UK Helplines team, which offer a daily support, guidance and signposting service for young Muslims and victims of domestic abuse.

Our work in the UK is part of a larger network of incredible organisations across the nation. Our Coronavirus Emergency UK appeal is a great example of this. We wanted to serve many different vulnerable communities throughout this crisis, so we joined forces with a number of amazing organisations to do just that.

To serve vulnerable elderly people, we teamed up with Age UK Bradford to reach older people with Food and Hygiene Parcels, and we set up our Coronavirus Listening Line, staffed by Penny Appeal’s Helplines Team.

To help the homeless, we supported grassroots soup kitchens and banks across the UK, and we teamed up with housing charity My Space to provide homeless people with a secure home throughout the pandemic, so that they could self-isolate and stay safe.

Photo caption: The Khidmat Centres were just one of the amazing community organisations which we supported through our Coronavirus Emergency UK appeal.

To support struggling individuals and families, we set up our Hardship Fund and delivered thousands of Food and Hygiene Parcels through partners across the UK, for example The Active Wellbeing Society, the Khidmat Centres, Meeting Point, the BEAP Community and so many more.

To help our community Mosques to survive this crisis, we’ve partnered with the Muslim Council of Britain to provide weekly Jummah cash grants for struggling local Mosques across the UK.

Drawing on the specific expertise of each partner organisation, we were able to coordinate a wide-reaching Coronavirus Emergency response appeal which helped over 8,500 people in the UK across many different marginalised groups in our society.

Photo caption: Penny Appeal worked alongside Syria Relief to disinfect displacement camps in Syria, to limit the spread of COVID-19 and keep people safe.

We have replicated this success in countries across the globe for our global Coronavirus Emergency response, reaching over 800,000 people in need with vital aid through our hard-working staff and partners. But our use of partners won’t end when the threat of the pandemic reduces; we will continue to combine our knowledge, experience and expertise to make a big impact.

At home and abroad, working alongside local partners strengthens our programmes, lowers our costs and helps us to provide the best possible care to the people who need it most – meaning that your small change can make an even bigger difference.