Meet the Iranian People's Charity Crowdfunding to Change Lives

Mehrnoosh Ghaem Maghami was born in 1979 in Arak. Her marriage saw her move to Tehran, the city where she first began her civil activities. She went on to found the Mehrvarzan People's Charity in 2014: a group of ordinary citizens aiming to support the vulnerable in Iran, from elderly people unable to get by to children struggling to access education.

The group began its activities in Tehran but has now reached Sistan and Baluchistan and Kerman in the southeast. Giving working children an education, preparing food for rough sleepers and providing water tanks for residents are just some of the group’s tasks. IranWire’s citizen journalist spoke to Maghami about the story so far.

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How did you become interested in civil activities?

My interest in volunteering started in childhood, and my father was my first role model. In addition to being the school principal, he owned a spare parts store. Every year near Nowruz [Iranian new year], he collected donations from his colleagues to buy new clothes and shoes for impoverished children. My brothers and I were responsible for giving out the gifts.

As I got older, I was always involved in volunteering. But it only got serious after my marriage and migration to Tehran. In 2003, I graduated from university with a degree in English. Marrying as a student and my financial circumstances compelled me to work hard for several years. Little by little, I realized this was not the lifestyle I had dreamed of and I wanted to start volunteering again. I asked my employer to give me half a day off a week so that I could teach working children. After a while, my educational activities stopped due to my pregnancy. I also had to quit my job and rest at home.

Did your volunteering completely stop during that period?

I had to stop teaching the working children. But my activities continued, in a new direction. It was very difficult for me to stay home, be unemployed and just convalesce. Via the internet, I  got acquainted with a charity focused on sick children. The charity described the children's problems and asked for [financial] help. I shared one of their items on my Facebook page and the cost was covered with the help of my contacts and friends. In the same way, we raised money for each call published by this charity. This continued until my son was three years old. Now he was older I could get back to work, with the difference that I didn’t want to continue my previous job in business. Because of my interest in working in social spheres I took a job in the PR department of a crisis center for addicts.

That experience really impressed me. The center I worked with was responsible for feeding addicts under a contract with the municipality and the welfare organization. They were given bread for breakfast and potatoes for dinner: food of poor nutritional value that sparked off a new activity for me. I suggested to the members of the group I’d set up that we teach them how to bake, and that we prepare food for the center's rough sleepers one day a week. Everyone welcomed the idea and we started.

What was that process like?

Well, for example, we’d plan to make a vegetable stew. I’d take the food from the members, put it in a pot and deliver it to the center. I had to go to different parts of the city to deliver the food, which was very difficult due to my son's age. We continued to do this for a while until I resigned. Then a member of the group, who was a nurse at a hospital in the south of the city, suggested we provide a basket of goods for patients with livelihood problems. With the consent of group members, several families were introduced to us and we prepared a hamper from the collected donations. Gradually more needy people were brought to us and the number of group members increased. Our work became more serious.

Where do most of your clients live?

In the beginning, we chose areas we could manage to get to. So our activities were limited to Tehran, Karaj and Islamshahr. Based on experience, we found that instead of areas that were famous for being a kind of showcase of poverty – because different charities already worked there – it was better to choose areas that got less attention.

Did you have any other target group besides sick people?

After doing some scattered work, we decided to set three target groups. The elderly, who do not have an income or stipend and are unable to work due to old age, women heads of households who have children under the age of three and cannot work outside the home, and women heads of households who are able to work but whose income is so low they still can’t provide for the family.

When did you decide to start working in south-eastern Iran?

As I mentioned, our original area of ​​activity was Tehran, Karaj and Islamshahr, until one of the group members mentioned that in one of the villages of Sistan and Baluchistan, they needed a classroom. They described the situation in that village. In consultation with the other members, we issued a call for help and the costs were all covered.

I was invited to open the space; I first said I couldn’t get there because of my son. But their insistence, and my husband’s support in taking care of our child, convinced me to travel to Sistan and Baluchistan for the first time. It was close to September and I didn’t want to go there empty-handed. After coordinating with one of the civil activists in the province, we prepared 1000 packages of stationery and set off on the journey. The money we had earmarked was only enough for 300 packages, but the gentleman we bought the stationery from told us: “Don’t worry about the rest of the cost; you can pay later."

We were on the road for about 22 hours. By the time we arrived, the rest of the money had been raised. We were waiting for the delivery of the goods when one of the donors called and asked, "Do you want to buy shoes?". I said we didn’t have enough cash; he put forward a considerable sum so that we could get another 1,000 stationery sets and 500 pairs of shoes. Our work in Sistan and Baluchistan began.

Have you ever had to worry about financing projects?

This fear is always with me. Whenever I start a project, I ask myself, what will we do if the money isn’t forthcoming? But things always happen; what I have in mind always comes true. For instance in last year's call for stationery, we wrote that we also hoped to be able to buy shoes. A friend of mine said I was being too optimistic because with the rise in prices, it was unlikely that even the stationery costs would be met. But eventually, both stationery and shoes were paid for. Every time we set a goal, no matter how impossible it seems at first, it eventually comes to fruition.

Were you involved in other projects?

The scope of our activities in Sistan and Baluchistan is very diverse. Every year we go there to distribute school supplies and publish reports from areas that don’t have schools. At least one or two schools will be built with the help of our donors.

On the invitation of the Red Crescent, we also participated in water projects. Although at first we could only promise ten tankers, by the end of that trip, more than 70 tankers of water were arranged and made available to the people. Also, with the money raised, we were able to dig deep wells in several villages where the spring water had almost dried up, and to resolve their water problem for at least a few years. In addition, in two villages where the distance from the water source to the village was a few hours, we dug wells which fortunately reached the water, saving the villagers from dehydration. After the floods in Sistan and Baluchistan we also carried out a large-scale project to rebuild and insulate schools and houses that had been damaged.

When did you add education to your repertoire?

After setting each goal, we’d think about how to evolve it to have a more lasting impact on people's lives. Based on the experience of working in Sistan and Baluchistan, we came to the conclusion that increasing the level of education would have a profound impact on people's lives. So we started the education support project.

The [provincial] education department provided us with a list of students who’d dropped out of school due to poverty. We went to their homes and after speaking to the families, we prepared a short story about each of their lives. The profiles of these students were provided to donors for monthly support.

After the coronavirus outbreak, when remote learning began in schools, we identified a large number of students who were unable to attend [virtual] classes due to poverty, and managed to procure about 130 smartphones for them. After Sistan and Baluchistan, we launched a more complex education support project in Normashir and Reygan in Kerman. Pupils are tested regularly and after identifying their weaknesses, we hold remedial courses to compensate for their academic disadvantage.

Do you have a new plan for the future?

We plan to provide skills training for students who are poorly- to moderately-educated to safeguard their future careers.

How can people trust you?

We have about 400 fixed donors. Because we provide them with accurate reports of expenses, it builds trust and they introduce us to others. We work quite transparently. For example, I don’t agree to receive funds to my personal account and another member has volunteered to do the accounting. We don’t take money for large projects such as school construction: instead, the donors directly pay the contractors and deposit the money in instalments as the work progresses. In addition, we do everything with the support of the education departments and the Red Crescent. This helps us to move more easily to remote, hard-to-reach areas.

Do you have any especially vivid memories of volunteering in these seven, eight years?

A few years ago, I was introduced to a person who was collecting dry bread to get by and had lung cancer. He had been sold as a child, and grew up in very difficult conditions. After working in Ardabil for many years he decided to emigrate to Tehran. He met his wife and married a few years later. One of their children was hyperactive, causing him to fall behind in education. They lived in a very small room in Karaj.

When this person was diagnosed with lung cancer, the doctors told his wife that his condition was severe and he should start chemotherapy. The treatment was free, but they couldn’t afford to get to the hospital in Shahr-e Rey from Karaj. We drew up a contract with a taxi company to pay for his travel and started supporting him. We took food packages to the family and advised them to register with the Imam Khomeini Relief Foundation. We found a job for his wife and paid for the childcare. The child also dealt with his academic shortcomings with the help of a teacher.

One day, the wife called me and said her father had died and her family had decided to sell his house because of their financial situation. They would give her enough money to rent a house, but she wanted to buy. I said it was a great idea. Eventually with the money the relief committee gave them, they were able to buy a small home.

I’ll never forget the day I went to their house. The man, who was in bed, said with tears in his eyes: "I never thought we’d be homeowners." His wife had a source of income and their lives had gradually been regularized.

After that, I wasn’t in touch with this family for several months and thought he must have died as the doctors had told him he wouldn’t live for more than a few months. Then I called his wife to ask how they were. She said: "We’re okay. My husband has repaired his motorbike and is going to work." I was so happy he was so well and had come back to life. Some things change people’s circumstances forever, and this is a story I’m proud of, because we did change the lives of this family forever.

This article was written by a citizen journalist in Karaj under a pseudonym.

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