If there is one thing that all delegates at the Commonwealth People’s Forum agree on when its comes to transforming people’s lives, is the power of partnerships.

It is partnership that has resulted in the incredible successes being made in the areas of poverty reduction, human rights, humanitarian activities, and gender empowerment. Civil societies have shown great leadership by going beyond religious, creed, ethnicity, and cultural differences to bring positive changes in people’s lives.

And there is no one partnership that epitomizes this than the one between two faith based organizations - Muslim Aids and UMCOR (a Christians organization) who came together in 2006 to diminish the suffering of human beings across the globe.

Muslim Aid is an international relief and development organization with its roots in the humanitarian teachings of Islam. UMCOR is the humanitarian relief and development agency of the United  Methodist Church, a worldwide denomination. Tomorrow ( 22^nd November), they are going to launch what they describe as  “Beyond the Rhetoric: the Journey of the Mulsim Aid-UMCOR Partnership.”

The two organizations have strong community links and experiences working with people in distress. Their partnership started as an informal coordination meeting, which  later turned into a fully fledged global partnership between the two agencies.

According to Amjad Mohamed Saleem of Muslim Aids, they came together in 2006 to reduce human suffering in Mutur, a town in Sri Lanka.  Although the two organizations pursued values based on different faiths, their determination to work as partners transcended this.

“We had realized that each one of us had strengths, which if combined, were going to have significant impact on the communities we were operating in,” says Saleem.

In the case of Sri Lanka, for instance, Muslim Aids had enough support staff but did not have sufficient vehicles to take them to the catastrophe hot spots. On the other hand, UMCOR had enough vehicles, but was incapacitated in the area of support staff.

On realizing this, the two organizations decided to combine their strengths, a move that resulted in major achievements in reducing the plight of the affected people. Since then, they have been operating in this form, guided by a memorandum of understanding they developed on year ago. Their partnership was officially launched in June, 2007.

“At the moment, although we profess different faiths, we reached a point where represent the work of each other at international meetings,” says Saleem.

The two organizations collaborate in the area of advocacy, lobbying, and delivery of humanitarian aid to those in difficult situations.

Saleem says they want to use their partnership to send a message that faith based organizations or any other NGO or community based organization, can achieve a lot if they unite for a common cause.

“Our presence here at the commonwealth people’s forum is to show that NGOs that share ideals can come together and make great impact in the lives of many poor people.”

Besides this, Saleem and Guy Hovey of UMCOR, want to share with other delegates on the partnerships that can last longer for common good.

But it has not been rosy for the two organizations. “When we first came to together, there was fear among staff of the two organizations who profess different faiths. Some were worried that this partnership would result in them losing their values and religious beliefs,” explains Saleem.

They have however managed to overcome this fears and move forward. “What we have agreed is to allow each organization to remain independent, but to unite on specific areas. This has worked very well for us.”

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