Ajman: A group of volunteers from a community group, ‘Socho Pakistan’, distributed hundreds of iftar packs to workers in an Ajman labour accommodation on Friday.
The self-funded initiative contacted theholymonth.com to provide its own volunteers every Friday to help with both the packaging and distribution of the iftar packs. The packs, which consist of packaged foods such as chocolate bars, milk and dates, were given to both Muslim and non-Muslim workers. “Instead of providing them with cooked meals, we gave them dry foods since we recognise that some of these labourers are not Muslim and might not consume the food immediately upon iftar,” said Yasir Chaudhry, a member of Socho Pakistan (think Pakistan)
He also added that a prevalent issue in Dubai recently has been food wastage, therefore, food with a long shelf life was ideal for the iftar packs.
“To our surprise, we actually ran short of around 100 packs because we did not think people would line up for iftar packs which cost, on average, Dh10 each,” said Chaudhry.
He explained that for the coming week, they will be visiting yet another labour accommodation in Ajman and will put together at least 1,000 iftar packs to avoid running short.
“We’ll be taking more than 1,000 packs to stay on the safe side,” said Chaudhry. “We are mainly focusing on Ajman since, to the best of our knowledge, most initiatives take place in Dubai and nobody has really ventured out as far as Ajman.”
He clarified that there are around six or seven projects the initiative will be focusing on, all of which will take place in Pakistan.
“Apart from the iftar packs, we recognise that Pakistan has suffered years of corruption as a result of bad leadership and we want to make small changes here and there to witness larger changes in the future,” he said.
Providing hospitals with generators, installing air conditioners in government schools and building shelters for the homeless suffering from the heatwave striking the country are some of the projects the initiative is currently working on. Chaudhry clarified that Socho Pakistan mentors and guides individuals who come forward to take full ownership of specific projects.
