On the occasion of the holy month of Ramadan, a group of residents at The Pearl-Qatar have come together to distribute charity meals to workers of the island development.
The Ramadan’s Pearl Charity Meals initiative brings together at least 200 residents of The Pearl-Qatar, who are led by a fellow resident, 28-year-old Jordanian architect Haitham, to provide the workers of The Pearl-Qatar with daily meals throughout the month of Ramadan to give back to the people who are less fortunate. The group of volunteers come from Austria, Germany, South Africa, Scotland, Egypt, Morocco, Tunisia, Bosnia, England, Spain, France, Qatar, India, Sudan, Canada and more.
These meals are prepared, packaged and distributed by the group of volunteers. ‘It began with us, residents of The Pearl-Qatar, and other residents around Doha who heard also about it and wanted to join our efforts. It started with a post of the idea I had on the Facebook social groups for The Pearl-Qatar residents, and afterwards, I started getting a lot of responses and started to arrange meetings with the interested residents to see how we can go forward, and then created this Facebook group so that more and more people interested can join us,’ Haytham explained, who was later joined by the main organisers, Miriam, Dounia, Laila, Elizabeth, Liana and Jamiela.
The group has distributed more than 1,400 dry meal bags and more than 500 warm-cooked meals thus far. They target three different buses of workers every day, which amounts to about 180 workers, with essential nitration packages. In addition, they plan to provide 80 warm-cooked meals daily to construction workers, cleaners and security men in the residences, parks and petrol stations. The meals may include dates, water, bread or croissant, juice or milk, fruits, honey or jam and more. The warm iftar meals may consist of rice with chicken or eggs, either cooked by the volunteers themselves or bought from restaurants.
Towards the end of Ramadan, the group will have distributed over 5,000 meals. ‘Some of the challenges we are facing are with having facilities and space where we can store the goods we are receiving, also space to carry on with the packing as we are using apartments from the volunteers at the moment. Also we had faced an issue with getting permission from The Pearl-Qatar to carry on with this initiative and hand out the meals to the workers at certain locations, but now we have that permission,’ Haitham explained.
If you wish to contribute to the initiative, you may visit their Facebook page, Ramadan’s Pearl Charity Meals. ‘The public can contribute, with supporting us, with donating perishable foods that we use in our dry meal bags. Also, they can help with cooking or ordering hot meals at iftar time so we can distribute them. Also, they can help with the packing events we have and the distribution events too,’ said Haitham.
According to Haitham, he hopes to continue this initiative annually during Ramadan but also beyond Ramadan. ‘We hope to extend our programme beyond Ramadan to different times during the year to spread the spirit of compassion, care and appreciation between everyone.’
Author: Ola Diab
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