United Care Trust is a registered trust established by Dr Junaid Qureshi and Abdul Saboor.
They are both members of the Dunedin Pakistan and Muslim community and aim to offer different community initiatives.
One of their first projects is providing a platform to help groups of people become members of a funeral support programme.
Members pay a one-off joining fee and a small annual fee for each dependant, and when someone dies the collective members of the group share funeral expenses of up to $8000 between them equally.
Trust president Dr Junaid Qureshi said each member signed an agreement for funds to be withdrawn.
This eased the financial burden on the deceased member’s family and by contributing as a collective, no-one person was being required to shoulder the whole cost.
Dr Qureshi said the programme could be a better option than paying funeral insurance, because depending on the life of the person, someone could end up paying more in insurance than the payout after death.
The aim was not to have one large group, instead it could be smaller groups of people who came together to agree to help each other.
The trust simply provided the platform to help administer the process.
For example, say one group had 800 members. If one member died, the trust would withdraw $10 from each member’s bank account to pay a total of $8000 towards funeral expenses.
Before this happened, people would be given advance warning, and if a member was struggling financially, the group would have the option to help cover those withdrawals.
Any group could come together to help each other, whether it was family members or friends who cared for each other, Trust chairman and treasurer Abdul Saboor said.
The trust had discussed the idea with other groups and it was hoping to reach out to many different groups who might benefit from the scheme, he said.
Dr Qureshi said if any community group or organisation was interested in initiating a funeral support programme, they were welcome to access and download resources from unitedcare.org.nz
"Additionally, they can reach out to us for assistance and guidance.
"We are ready to equip them with the necessary tools and provide step-by-step instructions on how to independently manage the programme within their communities."
