Entrepreneurs: Raheel Mohammed and Natalia Chan based at the Young Foundation, London.

What does it do? Maslaha is an innovative organisation, which helps Muslims deal with the everyday dilemmas of living in western society, whilst observing their faith in areas such as healthcare, education finance and family life. Maslaha-Health develops Iinformation materials on clinical conditions such as diabetes, CVD and peri-natal care.

Need: British Muslims have the highest rates of reported ill health among communities in Britain. Tackling the health inequalities that Muslims experience is a priority for Primary Care Trusts with large Muslim populations. Advice on health issues whilst being sensitive to religious beliefs is urgently needed. Non-Muslim practitioners could also gain from a better understanding of the dilemmas faced by Muslims when accessing health services.

Solution: The health strand of Maslaha tackles the underlying causes of poor health within the Muslim community, namely, little knowledge and understanding of how to maintain a healthy lifestyle whilst adhering to religious beliefs. In 2008, Maslaha successfully produced a health resource in partnership with NHS Tower Hamlets to address the high prevalence of diabetes within the Muslim community. Maslaha produced an interactive website - www.diabetesintowerhamlets.org and a DVD in both English and Sylheti, which offers advice on diet, exercise and fasting during Ramadan from a medical and Islamic perspective.

Maslaha-Health will broker partnerships with Primary Care Trusts and other funders to create additional modules which will then be available for use generally. The overall aim is to increase the number of Muslims who look after their health appropriately and thus improve their health outcomes.

Health Launchpad is co-funding the project so that further modules can be developed and materials made available. Health launchpad is providing expertise to develop a trading arm for the Maslaha charity to ensure wider uptake of this information. Currently in development are programmes that deal with cardio-vascular disease, maternity care and peri-natal death. The result will be a web-based resource, DVD and printed materials in Urdu, Punjabi and English.

www.maslaha.org

Latest news: Maslaha has recently received national recognition for its work from Diabetes UK with their Shared Practice Award. Maslaha are successfully promoting their new resource, www.caringforyourheart.org with surgeries, schools and community organisations. Dr Khalid who has been using the website and DVD said: "This has been the most useful health intervention we have used as it reaches patients directly. There has been a real demand for the DVDs and when we have marketed the website, I know there has been a real surge in use."

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