Giving Zakah to the Charity Foundation for Orphans

Fatwa no. 18290 Praise be to Allah, the Charity Foundation for Orphans in Makkah Al-Mukarramah was founded. Article (3) of the Foundation statute defines its objectives as follows:The Foundation aims at offering services needed locally without financial profit. Following is a list of services:1- Inculcate the principles of the true religion of Islam and the sound creed into (Part No. 8; Page No. 428) the minds and the conscience of orphans, so that they might grow up firm in belief, steadfast in faith and of sound mind.2- Provide orphans, or generally all minors who have been deprived of certain needs, with the necessary moral and material care since birth until they are fully educated or professionally trained, thus preparing them to face life's difficulties.The following are examples of types of care provided:a- Guarantee monthly assistance to those who sponsor orphans and their likes to help them maintain the cost of living.B- Give aid to deal with educational problems that might be an obstacle to orphans and their likes in all stages of education.C- Provide orphans and others with health care service, so as to guarantee medical management of illnesses or diseases and keep them healthy, vigorous and energetic.D- Provide orphans and their likes with social care services within their families and natural environment in a way that fulfills their psychological, social, biological and other needs.3- Seek to set up housing programs, projects and centers (Part No. 8; Page No. 429) and manage them in a sound, scientific method in line with the objectives of the Foundation. They are also managed in such a manner as may confront difficulties that might stand in the way of orphans and others with special needs in their natural environment. The Foundation is also running other programs, projects and institutions within the scope of the Foundation's work with which it is entrusted by the Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs.The overwhelming majority of those whom the Foundation is to care for are orphans who will be housed in the Foundation's headquarters or among their poor and needy families. Moreover, a reasonable number of them will be vagrants who have no breadwinner at all and are thus included under the category of orphans. Is it permissible for the Foundation to provide livelihood, including housing, food, drinking water, clothing, health care, educational and cultural care and the like for orphans and others out of the Zakah (obligatory charity) money received by the Foundation? Note that if we suppose that some of these orphans belong to solvent families, so it will be possible to identify their percentage precisely.