To the Solace Community:
Assalamu alaikum dear Brothers and Sisters,
I pray this newsletter, for the second quarter of 2024, finds you and your loved ones in good health and strong faith. Ameen. I must firstly apologise for the gap in sending out newsletters until now – this was due to how very busy we have been at Solace – providing essential support to revert women and developing existing and new services.
To bridge the gap between my last letter and this one, please read our Impact Report for 2023.
I am pleased to announce the following developments at Solace in Q2 of 2024.
1-1 Support Service 💬 (for revert women globally)
1. Our 13-year-old service continues to be developed, monitored and evaluated to ensure we are providing the best 1-1 support to our services users.
2. Online face-to-face support is being piloted with service users so that we may offer this to those who prefer to visually engage with their support workers.
3. A route for former service users to volunteer for Solace is currently a work in progress – creating a pathway for revert women to give back to the community after their support ends successfully.
4. The Solace single mother sponsorship programme was revamped and was rolled out on 1st July 2024.
5. The Support Worker comprehensive guide (full of tools and resources) has been updated and will soon be made available to support workers to assist them with the amazing support they already provide.
6. A new counsellor has been recruited as part of the Psychotherapy service.
7. As a result of an increased influx of applications for support, we have recruited new support workers to join our team whom we will be welcoming to the team and training in the current quarter.
Financial Support Service 💷 (for revert women who are resident in the UK)
- The financial support service continues to serve the revert community with our Finance Panel working hard; sifting through applications and documents to ascertain a service user’s eligibility for financial assistance and zakat. It is a very thorough process and one that has served the revert community almost as long as Solace has existed, providing essential rent, food and clothing support to low income families as well as debt relief.
Marriage service 💍 (currently for revert women who have accessed 1-1 support)
- The marriage service continues to support service users who are either looking to marry/require mediation due to marital conflict through our fantastic Wali panel (1 male and 2 females) who act in the form of a surrogate father/family figure for revert women who do not have Muslim family support. At present both aspects of the marriage service are only being delivered in-house for our service users to ease ourselves into what we know will be a huge demand once it launches to the public. Work is being carried out and funding is being sought to allow us to reach that stage.
- Will writing (for revert women in the UK), the Ask A Sheikh service (for revert women globally), the Legal Power of Attorney service (for revert women in the UK) and the What’s On services (for revert women in the UK) are still continuing – providing legal, social and Islamic support for revert women. A list of our services and what we offer, as well as how to apply can be found here.
Events 📅
1. This was a busy quarter as Ramadan fell into part of Q2. We are pleased to share that we successfully launched Iftars in London and the North which prevented loneliness during the blessed month. A number of mosque collections were conducted and we are grateful to the community who donated their sadaqah and zakat during these collections. Our annual Eid parties/dinners and Eid gift giving were huge successes – bringing joy to revert women and their children.
2. Work is underway to host a stall at the upcoming GPU Event that is expected to attract 100,000 visitors inshaAllah. We look forward to meeting you there inshaAllah!
3. Event plans have also been completed for a number of trips taking place in 2024.
4. Join our mailing list. 📧
- The volunteers department has had a productive quarter. Volunteers were recruited for Eid parties and fundraising events. Recruitment efforts for event volunteers in Manchester and London were successful, alhamdulillah. Much development took place within the department by way of evaluation forms – ensuring we are constantly improving our volunteers programme, a guide for one-day event volunteers – so that more of you can contribute towards helping us bring large events for revert women, trainings and much more. Our volunteers programme means that we are able to deliver more and better as a result of the kind dedication of your time. We thank and appreciate all of our volunteers.
Expansion 📈
As part of our 10 year strategy, we have plans to increase our reach so that we can offer support to more revert women. Much work took place in Q2 towards our plans and I am pleased to announce that we were able to:
1. Finalise the mapping of Services in London and the North
2. Identify the key Islamic organisations and mosques operating in London
3. Meetings were conducted and collaborations proposed with 8 organisations/mosques. In doing so, we are able to work with existing service providers to enhance specialised support for revert women in local communities
4. Do look out for the next stage of our plans where we will be hosting a number of Focus Group Dinners for revert women across London inshaAllah.
Alhamdulillah the quarter couldn’t have been successful without the hard work of the Solace team. On behalf of the Board of Trustees, I must extend my gratitude to the hard work and beautiful cohesion of the Solace team. I ask Allah to reward them all. Ameen.
And now, a special thank you to all of our donors and supporters. Without you, we would not be able to do what we do – supporting women who have chosen to believe in the Oneness of Allah as they navigate the challenges that accompany their journeys. For every revert women we have been able to support – we ask Allah to reward in abundance, all those who have donated, forwarded our campaigns and volunteered. Ameen.
Until the next newsletter inshaAllah, you are all in my du’a,
Aliyah Quadri (Umm Raiyaan)
Founder and CEO
Solace UK
