The India Covid-19 issue has provided an opportunity for many wonderful and altruistic organisations to come forward and help mankind. They are working around the clock to make the lives of regular Indian folks easier. However, the second wave of the epidemic has also given rise to bogus organisations and thug-like NGOs that are spying on and exploiting regular people in the guise of Covid relief efforts. At blame are also uninformed individuals who donate mindlessly to such fake organisations without doing any basic research on what the NGO is and how it functions.
One particular NGO located in the United States has sparked outrage in India by deliberately targeting the country’s youngsters on Instagram. The Islamic Medical Association of North America (IMANA) has been conducting sponsored ads on Instagram, as well as paying influencers and promoters to disseminate its photos and stories. IMANA Cares was discovered to have become extremely famous in India overnight a few days ago, and has since received significant traction and support from India’s youth.
All About (IMANA) Islamic Medical Association of North America
The Islamic Medical Association of North America (“IMANA”) is the biggest Muslim medical organisation in North America and one of the world’s largest faith-based medical organisations.
It was created in 1967 in Illinois as a non-profit 501(c)(3) organisation committed to Islamic medical objectives. IMANA’s aim is to serve as a resource and platform for Muslim physicians and other health care professionals in the United States and Canada. IMANA’s mission is to raise knowledge of Islamic medical ethics and principles among Muslims and the general public, to give humanitarian and medical aid, and to lobby for health care policy. The organization’s present headquarters are in Lombard, Illinois.
Interestingly, IMANA is a ‘NGO’ only dedicated to the advancement of Muslim society. “It is a premier resource and network for American-Muslim healthcare professionals in North America,” according to the organization’s profile. It states that its goal is to provide the finest possible service to its Muslim patients.
IMANA, along with 26 other Islamic Medical Associations from across the world, is a founder member of the Federation of Islamic Medical Associations.
It was accused in April 2021 of gathering donations to assist India in its 2nd Wave of Covid-19 but did little to assist the country or its hospitals, presumably keeping the money for themselves or using it for terror-related fundraising.
The Controversy
IMANA has collaborated with ISNA, and both organisations are committed only to the advancement of Muslim society. ISNA’s charity designation was cancelled by Canadian authorities in 2018 for ‘non-compliance’ and also for having ties to the Hizbul Mujahideen, which is fighting the Indian state in Kashmir. Simply put, Indians have been sharing posts and supporting a fundraising for an NGO with connections to the ISNA, which has been accused of funding Islamist terror groups in Jammu and Kashmir.
The IMANA Cares website (https://imana.org/) remained inoperable as of the time this report was written, with the organisation citing “technical issues owing to extraordinary traffic” as the explanation. Normal organisations, on the other hand, may readily overcome such technological challenges. IMANA’s website has been down for several hours. This comes following reports in India of an NGO duping Indians under the guise of Covid humanitarian operations and the ‘Help India Breathe’ campaign.
Concerning the ‘Help India Breathe’ initiative, IMANA Cares has launched an Instagram fundraiser. Surprisingly, Instagram fundraisers are yet to be activated in Indian jurisdiction. To get around this, IMANA referred well-meaning scapegoats to a secondary site displayed on their bio. However, there aren’t many Indians on the list of donors here. So, despite the fact that Indians have donated to the NGO, why are they not listed?
Even more troubling is the fact that IMANA Cares has revised its Instagram fundraising objective three times. This is because they reportedly duped a huge number of Indians and, witnessing the success of their campaign, continued to raise their objectives. The risk of them swindling enormous quantities of money simply grows as their aims are constantly raised. Initially, IMANA Cares set a target of 1.8 crore as the total money to be collected, which was quickly boosted to 3 crore and then to 5.6 crore by the organisation. Surprisingly, every time the aim was met, the organisation discreetly boosted its target. This is questionable in and of itself because, in general, all fundraising efforts have fixed dates and finish when their pre-set objective is met.
On the surface, the aims of this American NGO appeared to be exceedingly noble. However, social media users quickly began to doubt the legitimacy of this NGO and its funding effort.
As it turns out, there are several reasons to assume that the NGO and its fundraising effort are a fraud.