Our story
It began as a group chat and a rent payment.
Nobody set out to found anything. A mother needed her rent covered before the Friday, a few women covered it, and it turned out there was always another Friday.
Seven years on we are still volunteers, still without an office, and still without anyone drawing a salary. What has changed is the number of women who know there is somewhere to call.
The idea underneath it is old and simple: qard hasan, a loan given for its own sake, with nothing added to it. Money lent this month comes back and goes out again next month. That is why a fund this small can do as much as it does, and why we can say yes on a phone call instead of after a committee.
We are Muslim women, and that shapes how we work. It has never determined who we help.
How it grew
Seven years, roughly told.
No plan, no launch, and no year in which we decided to become this.
- 2018
A WhatsApp group and $400
It started with a handful of women, a group chat, and one mother who needed her rent covered before the Friday.
- 2020
The year everything doubled
Lockdown, lost shifts and closed schools. The fund did in three months what it had done in the previous two years.
- 2022
Gatherings, not just transfers
The dinners started, and the weekly bread run to shelters and food banks alongside them.
- 2024
Working with organisations
Masjids, shelters and schools began referring mothers to us directly, and we began referring back.
- Next
Financial literacy and work
Building the longer-term half: financial literacy sessions, and routes into work for the women who want them.
What we also do
Not all of it is money.
A fund is the part that is easy to describe. The rest of it is a soccer game against the kids, a trip to Banff, a night where everyone puts their phone in a basket, and a room where fancy Eid clothes get dropped off at half four and picked up at six.
Every poster below is one that actually happened.
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August 2026
Fun day before school starts
An afternoon in the park with a letters hunt, soccer and hide and seek, on the last Wednesday before term.
Huntington Hills Park
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May 2026
Ladies Eid Gala Dinner and Red Carpet Fashion Show
Dinner, a fashion show and an open discussion about motherhood, with four speakers.
Alfalah Calgary Islamic Center
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May 2026
Eid clothing collection
Families dropped off fancy Eid clothing in the afternoon, and families who needed it collected in the evening. Same room, two hours apart.
AlSalam Center
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April 2026
Mom and Kids Tea Gathering
An evening in the park, raising money for families overwhelmed with debt.
A park in northwest Calgary
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March 2026
Ladies Eid Gala
A red carpet evening with community speakers, and a fundraiser for medical supplies in Syria. Everyone brought a dish.
Alfalah Calgary Islamic Center
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March 2026
Eid Nasheed Concert
An open mic family night, with every dollar going to the interest-free loans.
Community hall on Bermuda Drive
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June 2025
Road Trip to Yoho National Park
A coach, a guide, and a day at Takakkaw Falls, the Spiral Tunnel, the Natural Bridge and Emerald Lake.
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May 2025
Soccer Showdown, moms against kids
Three Saturdays in a row, ten dollars a family, on the theme of getting everyone off a screen.
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April 2025
Banff and areas, ladies only Eid trip
A guided coach day through the town of Banff, Bow Falls, Surprise Corner and the hoodoos, run with Outreach Program Canada.
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April 2025
Speak to Inspire
An open mic morning, for women who had something to say and nowhere that asked them to say it.
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January 2025
The Four Archetypes and Life Balance workshop
An afternoon workshop led by Ustatha Manal Abdelwahab, author of Shaping a Child’s Heart.
Bermuda Drive, northwest Calgary
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December 2024
No Phone Night
Games, chai and a bouncy castle, on the condition that everybody put their phone away.
Beddington Theatre Arts Centre
The women behind it
Nobody here is paid, and nobody here is full-time.
Between us we speak English, Arabic, Somali and Urdu, and between us we have raised more children than we care to count, which is the only qualification this work has ever really needed.
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Malak Ghandi
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Shaimaa Hadjer Kraba
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Munirat Shobowale
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Hadeel Yousif
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Bushra Shehzad
If you'd like to contribute
What you give doesn't get spent. It gets lent, and lent again.
We have been lending since 2018. What comes back goes straight out again to the next mom who calls, which is why a fund this small can do as much as it does. Nobody here draws a salary and we hold no office.
Thank you for reading this far. The women of Moms4Moms Calgary