AIMCAANA’S LOAN PROGRAM
“Iqbalian House (Philadelphia, PA) has utilized young physicians from Allama Iqbal Medical College since 2005. Young Iqbalians have been able to use this housing resource without available online resources or similar mechanisms through APPNA. They would use this as temporary housing while finding clinical observerships, research attachments, giving USMLE exams, and during residency interviews. It has catered to scores of Iqbalians, but there was no financial support mechanism for young Iqbalians. Seeing the benefits the Iqbalian house provides to these Iqbalians, AIMCAANA leadership decided to help it become a better and more organized unit. In 2009, AIMCAANA started paying the rent of the Iqbalian house in the form of Qarz-e-Hasana. The motive behind paying the rent is to reduce the financial burden of young Iqbalians so that they can concentrate more on exploring the avenues to get into residency training, which is their primary motive to come to the United States. AIMCAANA leadership has also been providing counseling and mentorship to the interested Iqbalians. Now AIMCAANA’s Qarz-e-Hasana program is replaced by IQBAL loan.
We are pleased to announce that AIMCAANA has initiated a loan program (IQBAL LOAN) for the deserving young Iqbalians who come to the United States to pursue residency training/research. This loan intends to reduce their financial burden and one of their significant worries so that they can focus more on their exams and other related activities. In addition, the awardees may use the Loan amount to partially support their housing, residency applications, and interviews. We started to provide IQBAL Loans in 2015 with 4-5 deserving candidates but will be increasing to 8-10 young Iqbalians this year!
Our sources are limited, but our aims are very high. Our donors have always been very generous, and we are very grateful for their contributions. Our commitment is to help as many Iqbalians as we can. We can only do it with the participation of all Iqbalians, especially young Iqbalians. We expect them to start paying back the loan to AIMCAANA by the end of the first year of residency. We will ensure that the returned money is used for the next deserving Iqbalian who needs a loan. This way, AIMCAANA can continue this project for years to come. AIMCAANA has specified a certain amount of money only for this purpose. We expect that this amount will increase over the course of years, and we can broaden our financial help/loan to many more. The small loan program of AIMCAANA is only for deserving Iqbalians and not for all. Recently APPNA has announced that it will match up with AIMCAANA for its loan program.
We want to let all Iqbalians know that AIMCAANA is for them, and we will always be there to help them. We wish you the best of luck!”