The UAE has a serious commitment to charity - that's a well-known fact. What's heartening is when that commitment shows up in the form of a group of young children braving the scorching summer afternoon heat to go serve others. This weekend, a couple of local student and youth organisations - Students of the Earth and NbN Global Youth - banded together to organise an Iftar with a difference. It wasn't held for their families or friends, but in a charitable gesture, they organised an Iftar meal distribution at a women's labour accommodation in Ajman.
Both groups have been mobilising efforts for three years now, arranging for and distributing Iftar meals at labour accommodations around the UAE, said Shabeel Ummer, one of the key organisers (they call themselves social soldiers) of NbN. This particular charitable Iftar was organised keeping women and children in mind as the female labour accommodations in the UAE often do not come into the public eye or media focus. The groups thought it would be the best way to serve these deserving female foreign workers living in the UAE, and have young children - who grow up here and enjoy the country's comfortable lifestyle - get a firsthand view of the 'other side' of life. "Over the course of these last few days, we not only arranged with a hotel in Ajman to give us fresh and nutritious meal packets at Dh10 each, but also got companies and supermarkets to provide other essentials like toiletries and juice packs," Shabeel said.
On Saturday afternoon, it's exhaustingly hot and humid outside the women's accommodation, with flies and mosquitoes swarming around in the heat. But at the gate, eager children lined up with handy paper bags they had made themselves, and in which they gave out the above items. The parents thronged around too, to make cash contributions to the student organisations, and also to proudly beam at the sight of their little ones' efforts to help out those less fortunate than themselves. "Each student or family has contributed anywhere between Dh10 to Dh300 each, and we've collected in excess of the original requirement," Shabeel told us later. It enabled the groups to organise yet another charity Iftar meal at another labour accommodation, taking place as this is being written.
Shabeel gives the children a little motivational speech about the true purpose of the gesture they were about to perform, and the importance of being aware of and extending a helping hand to those who are not blessed as ourselves. Dividing up the Iftar packets and paper bags with the small gifts, to be given to each woman inside the accommodation, the children troop in an orderly manner into the premises, accompanied only by a couple of mothers to direct them, as men are not permitted to enter. After a bit of initial confusion, the almost 150 women there start lining up to receive the meal packs and gift backs from the children. Most of them give the kids a little, affectionate pat on the head or a hug after receiving the bags. Later, inside one of their rooms, a few of the women tell me the kids reminded of their own children back home.
The majority of the women are Sri Lankans, with a few Nepalese and Indians. "Most of us have been living here for 3 to 5 years," said Lakshita, a Sri Lankan who works for a local cleaning services company. "We're happy here and have no complaints as we get paid on time every month, and get our yearly ticket as well. But we do miss our families, especially our children," she said. Another resident, Nadeeksha, said: "We have had other people come here to donate Iftar food, and it's always a welcome break for us. But seeing these kids makes it extra special this time."
The whole exercise is done in an hour or so, well before actual Iftar time, so that the children and their parents could head back home in time to end their own fasts, or prepare for work or school the next day. So they didn't really get to end the fast or spend more time with the women at the Ajman accommodation, but that's on the agenda next time around. Ten-year-old Melvin, a student of Our Own English High School, said: "I feel really happy after doing this. We are always taught to help others, in school, but it feels amazing to do it for real outside the classroom."
This particular Iftar wasn't merely about feeding a few people, or ending the daily fast with an array of fancy, cooked dishes. At the end of a long, hot summer day, a few kids took the trouble to go the distance and put a smile on the faces of women living away from their homeland, working hard to support their families. That's the true meaning of observing Ramadan.
marypaulose@khaleejtimes.com
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