When low-income staff was surprised with high-end gifts

A young girl presents a branded bag to a female cleaner at the labour accommodation of women cleaners in Sharjah.

It was a routine Friday morning for some 200 odd women at the labour accommodation of a cleaning company in Sharjah. Some were just tidying up their rooms, some were making their beds, while some others were yet to wake up from the morning slumber on the only weekend holiday they have.
It was then that their "camp boss sister" Champika Gunasekara, the camp supervisor from Sri Lanka, assembled them all at around 8am. "Come on ladies, here are some gifts for you. All of you come out."
Champika was sent inside the labour accommodation to invite the women workers to come and collect some surprise gifts awaiting them outside.
More than 15 ladies and a few children were waiting outside the narrow lanes of their quarters.
As the workers queued up in their nightclothes, the women and children took out the gifts they had brought in a minivan and dropped them off at the labour lodgings.
To the surprise of the low-income workers, the women and kids had come with dozens of ladies bags - of different sizes, shapes, colours and brands.
Not just that. They were stuffed with gifts that would typically delight any woman - fashionable clothes, creams, shampoos, conditioners, lotions, lipsticks, napkins, and goodies like chocolates, chips, instant popcorn, noodles, soup sachets and many more.
Varalakshmi, a cleaner from India, was overjoyed to get a fancy bag containing a colourful hat, a beautiful T-shirt and a makeup set.
"This is really a nice surprise gift. I loved them all," said a jubilant Varalakshmi. Working in the UAE for six years, Varalakshmi said she had received gifts from benevolent UAE residents earlier as well. But this Friday's was a unique experience.
Precious thoughts
Some bags were of high-end brands like Roberto Cavalli and Gucci which the women cannot even think of buying ever in their lives. Yet, it is not the price of the gift, but the thought of sharing them that was more precious to them, said Champika.
"We are women who earn Dh850 to Dh1000..Anything you give is a precious gift for us.Even one dirham or a bottle of water is a big gift.We are not thinking about the cost.one chocolate will also make us happy," she said.
As the workers rushed to grab whatever they could and try out the clothes they received, a sense of satisfaction and gratitude filled the minds of the women and children who donned the role of Santa's elves this Christmas season.
Althea Kaushal, vice-president of Saffron Media Works, said her team of colleagues got the idea of launching the charity campaign they named "My Bag=Your Bag" after they got acquainted with a new cleaner in their office building in Dubai Media City.
"It's from her that we got to know there are labour accommodations where female workers live in.We wanted to do something for them this gifting season," said Althea.
Thinking out of the box, they realised the best way to inspire working women to gift their less fortunate counterparts would be to ask them to gift their own bags.
"Most women would have a hand bag that they don't use that much. Why not gift that to a poor lady? You are not losing anything.But why to stop it there? Why not stuff it with things that would make her happier.It will make you also happier."
As the campaign's message spread through WhatsApp, bags, used and unused, started pouring in with full of gifts and love.
"People came just with gifts also. One gentleman came with two huge bags full of new clothes with price tags ranging in thousands of dirhams. One woman, who collected some 10 bags from her neighbours rushed to my home last night after they got to know we were gifting the bags today."
Volunteers of Care2Share, an in-house initiative of Medulla Events and Marketing, helped her team in coordinating the gifting experience. "Some of us also took our kids with us and made them present the bags to the women so that they will also learn the values of sharing and caring."
She said the team is looking forward to making this a bigger gifting campaign in future.
sajila@khaleejtimes.com