Sharjah
In April, the UAE announced that they would be giving aid of at least Dh500 million to famine-hit Somalia. This was meant to help the more than six million people who desperately need humanitarian assistance. This made me think of doing something to help.
Many people just throw away used clothes or items that don’t fit anymore or have gone out of fashion. So, my brother and I thought of donating some clothes to the residents of Somalia. We visited our friends and neighbours, explained our initiative and its importance to them and started collecting used clothes that they didn’t need anymore.
We even encouraged our friends to join in by collecting clothes from people they knew and finally, we would go collect them.
Within a month, we managed to collect around 100 kilograms of clothes and donated it to Emirates Red Crescent (ERC). They are running an aid campaign named “For Your Sake, Somalia”, and our donations would reach those in need through this channel.
In addition to the clothes, I thought of donating a small part of the cash reward that I received towards the Shaikh Hamdan Award for Distinguished Student in the month of April. This amount could play a part in improving their lives. We are still collecting more clothes and have requested our friends and neighbours to inform us whenever they have clothes that are not needed anymore. Whenever we receive a call, we visit them and collect the donations.
Though there are charity bins located at various places in the UAE, most of the people hesitate to carry bags to them. Visiting their homes personally would help prevent these clothes from ending up in the trash and would instead, lead them to reach people in need.
— The reader is a pupil based in Sharjah.
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