The Muslim Institute Community Empowerment Fund provides an annual £10,000 grant to grassroot UK Muslim organisations or individuals working for the common good in our most neglected and overlooked communities. The fund seeks out and promotes excellence and high achievement.
The first beneficiaries of the Community Empowerment Fund were a new Oldham-based voluntary organisation Be whose mission is to empower young people and foster their self-confidence to help them believe in and achieve their goals. Their programme culminated in a three-day outdoor residential in Birmingham.
Be residential in Birmingham 2024
The second beneficiaries were West London based community activist Tahseen Mehar in partnership with the An-Nisa Society. They planned and delivered a residential weekend in rural Sussex in Spring 2025 for a group of young Muslim women aged 18-23. ‘The Wholesome Retreat’ offered a weekend of carefully crafted workshops and activities designed to inspire, nurture and enrich the character development of the participants as they step into womanhood.
Tahseen Mehar accepts the Community Empowerment Fund award at the Annual Ibn Rushd lecture, July 2024.
The retreat provided a holistic approach to exploring what this phase of life means to each individual, guided by female Muslim Leaders and practitioners with relevant experience in this field. Each interactive and educational session was crafted to empower participants with tools for building confidence, resilience and self-expression, all rooted within Islamic paradigms.