I am announcing my resignation from The Amal Project. The Amal Project was a dream of mine. I founded it not because I wanted to have my own organization or for any monetary gain. I founded it because I genuinely wanted to help others. I worked with, and witnessed several organizations that misused funds, overspent on accommodations and/or overpaid its employees. When I tried to explain or recommend different approaches the organizations can take to be more efficient, a majority of them took my advice as criticism and in turn, criticized me instead. This is what I attempted to do. I wanted to start an organization with the basis that I have the ability, passion and network on the ground to securely and safely deliver humanitarian aid to the majority of the liberated areas within Syria, with minimal to no cost. I wanted to lead by example by having minimal overhead, improving the method of distribution, and by empowering and giving leadership roles in The Amal Project to Syrian revolutionaries. To start this dream I took $20,000 from savings, which is money I kept with the hopes of opening a business, along with $7,000 I borrowed from family to fund and establish The Amal Project. My thoughts at that time, were that I was blessed with the ability to work, my job wasn’t going anywhere and that I can work for the rest of my life. I can use the money I have saved to establish the organization. I paid for all of the paperwork, accounting, and small fees associated with establishing an organization. Close to $4,000 was used to establish The Amal Project, roughly $5,000 was used to cover travel and accommodations for the 6 months in Turkey/Syria for Racan and I, and roughly $18,000 was used on several humanitarian projects. My role in the organization was the visionary and financial backer. I was the one with the network and contacts throughout Syria that gave The Amal Project its ability to operate there. As I began the process of founding The Amal Project, Racan Alhoch expressed interest, and wanted to become a partner. He was willing to join me on the trip that I originally planned to go on alone. He promised that he will receive a $3,000 check for being a volunteer fireman within the first week of arriving in Syria, and that he would receive $200 a week from unemployment thereafter. To my surprise, the check and weekly payments never arrived. Even though he didn’t have money, I thought it would be ok to bring him on board if it meant that I would get solid support. I couldn’t do everything on my own and Racan Alhoch said he would like to be on the team, and that he has web design skills and appeared to be passionate. He built the website, and is the sole person with access to the paypal and website, along with all bank statements that get mailed to his home. I never worried about giving him too much power, because even though I never trusted him, I did not expect him to behave the way he did. Just before Ramadan began, I wanted to purchase a dozen or so donation boxes to place in convenient stores as an easy method to get steady small donations. This should have been our first and only transaction using our the Amal Project Bank account that only Racan Alhoch, Hala Alhoch (Racan’s sister and Treasurer of The Amal Project) and myself had access to. When I brought up a discrepancy to Racan, he lied and said that he sent money to a bakery we sponsored in Hama and that we are in debt to the bank. This is when things stopped making sense to me. I didn’t understand why he would send money without my approval, and I also didn’t understand how we can possibly be negative since the account was never used. The entire plan was to collect, collect, collect and during this time we will see how much we raised and head to Syria. The following day, I went to TD Bank to find out what is happening with the account. What I read in the bank statements, made me sick to my stomach. The statements revealed a gross misuse of charitable funds. Without my knowledge or approval, Racan has been using the organization bank card like a 13 year old girl with her daddy’s credit card. When I tried to get to the bottom of this, I was not met with straight answers. I was lied to, bullied and every answer I was given was not convincing. Not only was our account in debt, it had accumulated $1,400 in bank fees. The bank closed our account and sent our debt to collection. Out of fear of having my credit score destroyed, I had to borrow $450 from a friend to pay the bank back. At this point, I was completely devastated, and I felt shame and betrayal. After this painful ordeal, I feel disgusted and will not operate using The Amal Projects name. I cannot believe how I spent close to $27,000 of my personal money, while Racan had the nerve to not tell me that individuals were donating to us. With these new, unknown donations, Racan was still spending the money on personal things, rather than it going to defenseless Syrians that it was destined to. Since I started and invested all the money that made it possible to establish Amal, I told him that we will close the organization and that he is now responsible for 50% of all start up costs and my zakat. I never wanted to recuperate the zakat and overhead costs, but I must since he completely tarnished The Amal Project name and is forcing me close the organization. The dream was to establish this organization to spread hope across the world. Starting in Syria, the plan was to Insha’Allah operate in other countries as well. This, however, is not possible anymore due to the gross misconduct by Racan. I hold Racan responsible for 50% of everything I spent for Zakat and establishing The Amal Project. This amount is about $14,000, in addition to the $10,000 of misused charitable donations. Close to $10,000 was transferred from The Amal Projects PayPal to our bank account and 100% of all transactions were done without my knowledge or approval. All transactions charged on The Amal Project’s account were all personal purchases such as restaurants, hotels, auto repairs, ATM withdrawals and everything else you can imagine. I tried to recuperate the misused charitable donations by offering him to pay back all the misused funds in the traditional manner. I gave him the option to do toubay (forgiveness) & pay back the money within THREE YEARS. Not 30 or 90 days, to pay back in full and if he we were to do this, his criminal unethical act would not be exposed. His last and final betrayal was when he agreed multiple times to pay back $3,000 of the misused charitable donations. The money was promised to two Italian humanitarians and field hospitals we are coordinating with. We had an agreement, and we put the promised money in the budget. When he was supposed to send me the first check, nothing happened, and he began to ignore me. Not only did he lie to me, he gave false hope to the field hospitals we were coordinating with and resulted with the Italian humanitarians hating me. Recently I found out that not only is he trying to get away with misusing charitable donations, he also is trying to steal my organization from me and is threatening me with lawsuit if I expose his unethical behavior to say the very least. The way he is trying to steal my organization is without my knowledge on some legal work he put himself as President. Once I found out there was an issue in the account, I immediately told Racan to shut down the website until all the issues are resolved. The website was shut down for a few days, and then was brought back up after we received 501c3 status. What was supposed to be the greatest news became bad news. I found out we got 501c3 tax exemption status after I discovered Racan misused and then lied about misusing charitable donations. My last and final proposal that I offered him after I became aware we received to 501c3 tax exemption status, was for him to forget about everything I invested and for him to just pay back the $10,000 of misused charitable donations. I also asked for him to resign from Amal and forbade him to work with any other NGO if this problem was not made public. So where do we go from here? I honestly don’t know. I have tried everything in my power to have this resolved the traditional way and for the misused funds to be returned. I did not want to alarm anyone, but instead Racan thought he can get away with misusing charitable funds. He is also trying to get away with taking over an organization in which I invested nearly $30,000, and intimidating me with a letter from a lawyer to not notify anyone about the misused charitable donations. $10,000 USD were transferred from the organizations PayPal account, and every dollar of that was spent on anything but humanitarian aid. Only Racan Alhoch, Hala Alhoch and myself have access to the account, so it must be one of us misusing the funds. If you or someone you know donated to The Amal Projects website or deposited directly into The Amal Projectss PayPal account, it was misused and please take action. I am aware and have the ability to follow up on any excuse or lie that Racan may come up with. I have all bank statements, and I can send them to anyone that wants to see for themselves. I will post the March bank statement, since this is the one that got me the most frustrated. Pay extra attention to the days before the 3rd Anniversary of the Syrian Revolution protest in DC.
Posted on: Thu, 31 Jul 2014 22:45:56 +0000
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