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Friday March 29, 2024

RAMAZAN UL MUBARAK: Spirit of sharing and help should continue for rest of year as well

By Myra Imran
June 26, 2017

Islamabad

Holy month of Ramazan brings with it the spirit to share and help. In this month, people give and share more than their capacity. Many well-to-do families give one month grocery to poor they know, the mosques offer free ‘Iftar’ for needy, rich arrange for ‘Iftar’ in front of  hospitals  and people look for truly deserving to give away Zakat during  this month. 

Throughout Ramzan, ‘Iftar’ is the best time to experience this spirit. Take a round of Islamabad at that time and you will see the vans full of ‘Iftar’ packs distributing food among the deserving.

Long queues of needy can be seen around the distribution spots and charity food gets distributed within minutes of it arrival which depicts the poverty level in and around the city.

Similarly, ‘Dastarkhwans’ are arranged at busy spots where volunteers can be seem moving here and there efficiently to serve the poor.  Rising Youth is one such group of volunteers who arranged such ‘Iftars’ in busy localities of Rawalpindi and Islamabad under the project ‘Dastarkhwan-e-Ramazan.

The team is comprised of enthusiastic boys including Aaaqib Ansar, Umaid Khurshid, Zain Faridi, Khurram Faridi, Ahsam Ganoni, Usama Awan, Umer Shafique, Ijaz Ahmad, Mamoon, Tanzeel, Hammad, Bilal, Hassan zaheer, Hamza Sheikh and Aziz Ullah Khan who helped them manage things for the noble cause.

Whether it was a rickshaw driver, taxi driver, shemales, students, employees or families, all were gathered around a red carpet with ‘samosas’, ‘pakoras’, ‘biryani’ and other food items served on it. The volunteers stood around the road to give drinks and food to those who cannot join the ‘Dastarkhwan’. 

“It was a very different and eye opening experience altogether seeing the evident misery upon the faces of poor rushing towards food and water. It goes to show the reality that we are so lucky to have all the basic amenities. We collectively as a society need to address this issue that it is right for everyone to have food and clean drinking water," said Aziz Ullah Khan, one of the volunteers.

Talking about how this initiative started, they said that unequal distribution of wealth leads to poverty which gives rise to hunger and thirst. “We daily see children collecting food from the garbage.

Although providing food is the responsibility of the government, but due to governance issues and limited resources, we can't solely depend on the government, so we thought it was our duty to do something for our community, be it small, but we can take a first step,” they said.

The boys said that collection of funds and taking out time along with their jobs were the major challenges they faced. “And it was also difficult for us to manage people at the time of Iftaar because everyone wanted to have food and water first and they were rushing towards us rather than sitting and waiting in the queues,” they shared.

The team wished this spirit can continue all year. “Yes, agreed, it should continue for the whole year. As we have got the momentum with this successful 20 days initiative, we are planning to visit SOS villages, Old Age Homes and orphanages with our team of dedicated boys and girls,” said one of the volunteers.