There are over 1 billion illiterate adults in the world today. To be illiterate in modern times is to live in a hostile and confusing world. Illiteracy closes the doors of opportunity especially in terms of employment and opens the doors to oppression and abuse of the poor. Hence, the provision of quality education and job-skills training for the most poor and vulnerable sectors of the community has been a primary mandate for MH from the outset. Alhamdulillah, worldwide, Muslim Hands has established over 200 educational establishments and currently provides free education and training to over 13,000 needy boys and girls. Here are a selection of our current educational projects in Africa:

MH Schools of Excellence (SOE) provide the very best in education. Worldwide, the curriculum is set and monitored by in-house educationalists and is at least to the level of the Oxford Syllabus. The Sudan SOE provides places for 300 needy orphans.

Like all MH Schools of Excellence worldwide, the school's primary aim is to educate needy orphans. In Ethiopia, MH provides the school children with food, medical care and also offers vocational training upon leaving the school.

MH has undertaken the task of building three new SOEs in 2007 in Diouloulou, Senagal, Niamey, Niger and in Bomako, Mali. Due for completion in 2008, the schools will not only provide education to 900 needy orphans and poor students, but help raise the standards of education in their localities as they have done in Pakistan and Sudan.

MH has been supporting schools in Tanzania since 2004 and is currently constructing a Quranic school for 200 needy children in the village of Machame to open in 2007.

Literacy classes in The Gambia are designed to help adults learn to read and write and are held at informal times that are most suitable to mothers and rural workers. With new found skills and confidence many are able to find better employment, insha'Allah.