Dubai: Vinod Rai's employers closed shop and left Dubai, taking his passport with them. The Nepalese is now homeless and has to rely on charity donations for his food.
Twenty-two-year-old Mohammad Mohsin has no roof over his head. He sleeps in parks and depends on charity organisations to feed him.
Mary worked in Dubai for two years. Her visa expired last year and she cannot afford the airfare home. A lack of finances has led her to eating charity meals at an open-air park in Karama.
Ramesh is stuck in Dubai because his employer owes him Dh9,000. Without money, he has no means of going home to India. He relies on non-profit organisations to feed him two meals a day.
SUPPORTiNG ROLE
These are just a few shocking stories revealed to XPRESS when it visited non-profit organisation Karama Kanteen. Co-founder Roshni Raimalwala works long hours to ensure that close to 200 homeless, jobless and often illegal workers have food to eat on a daily basis. "Karama Kanteen plays a supporting role to Dr Shashikala, a lady who cooks and provides for an average of 200 homeless people per day," she says.
Raimalwala said they have come across some heart-wrenching stories such as that of Shankar Bhai Patel, a carpenter who lost his job when his company closed down. They never returned his passport or paid him his dues. The man is now sick, but he can't read doctor's reports to know what's wrong. He sleeps in a medical centre and eats wherever there are charity donations.
Similar is the case with Satnam who used to work as a watchman. After working 11 months without pay, he was made redundant; his passport mysteriously "lost". Today, he depends on help from Karama Kanteen.
Dr Shashikala, who provides free medical aid to these workers at her clinic, Al Misbah Medical Centre, says, "Just feeding these people isn't enough. Clothing them, although helpful, doesn't always do the trick either. All they need is aid to return to their home countries."
Through regular donations, the non-profit organisation provides two meals a day, consisting of rice and lentil soup to the homeless in Karama and Rolla (Sharjah). "We need approximately 60kg of rice and 40kg of lentils daily," says Raimalwala.
Duped and desolate
The largely Indian and Nepalese groups are the uneducated who claim to have been duped by their owners.
"The majority have no passports or legal papers," says Raimalwala. "These are labourers whose companies have shut down, owners have run away, and now they're left stranded with no passports and no money."
Workers without legal documents need to make an outpass in order to travel. "However, most of these people have no knowledge of any such system. They come to us with sob stories of how they were duped, cheated or framed by their employers. The majority don't even want their annulments paid to them. All they want is the method and means to go back home," says the charity worker.
"And while that happens, it is up to us to see that these men and women get two meals a day and water to drink."
- If you want to contribute, write to karamakanteen@hotmail.com
