A Ramadan online gift-matching campaign by the United Nations World Food Programme (UNWFP) is hoping to raise funds to the equivalent of 800,000 school meals during the next month, to help fight hunger in Muslim countries around the world.
The Rotary Clubs of the UAE will match each dollar donated during the holy month.
UNWFP Middle East, North Africa, Eastern Europe and Central Asia partnerships and business development manager Elise Bijon said the campaign would help families who most needed it, and wanted to celebrate Ramadan but did not have enough food to break their fast.
“For hundreds of thousands of families celebrating Ramadan this month, Iftar is just a distant dream.”
This is what “Ramadan is about”, she said.
“Ramadan is a chance for anyone, regardless of religion, to connect with the poor. Through the experience of fasting, it’s a chance to feel in your body what hunger is like. It’s a chance to feel that connection — and to contribute.”
She said she felt the target was feasible, particularly considering how active the Arab world was online.
“We are a bit crazy but we are convinced hunger can be eradicated. Solutions exist, and they are affordable. It only costs one dirham to feed a child for a day.”
Online donations to WFP campaigns from individuals in the UAE ranked the country the sixth most generous online donor country in the world, she said.
The UAE comes in number one worldwide in the average gift amount donated. An average online gift from the UAE was a “super generous” $ 145.
“And when it comes to social media, our Arab youth is our second biggest online Facebook community (behind England). If it follows this pace, it might be bigger than the English (Facebook WFP) community by the end of the year.”
The programme’s largest operations were in Syria, Pakistan, Sudan, Yemen and Indonesia. Last year, WFP provided food to more than 97 million people in 80 countries — and more than half of the beneficiaries came from Muslim countries, she said.
In particular, Yemen, Sudan and Indonesia were countries “people tended to forget.”
Nearly half of Yemen’s population was hungry or on the edge of hunger, she said.
“It’s a major, major food crisis that is happening next door. Nearly half of kids under five are stunted as a result of malnutrition. And this is so close (to us).
“(And) literacy among Yemen women is a huge issue. So we are deploying the core of our efforts to send little girls to school, and we do that by giving take-home rations to families to act as an incentive to let their girls go to school.
“It’s so important — if they don’t go to school, they will likely be married early, and remain illiterate like their mothers and grandmothers before them. How can we expect to build a better Yemen if the women cannot support and educate their children? Educated women are the key to the wellbeing of a nation, and this is a very specific example of what is going on in a Muslim country that is right next door.”
President of the Rotary Club of Jumeirah, Ahmad Belselah, said Ramadan was “a precious opportunity to feel, with our bodies and hearts, a connection with the world’s hungry poor”.
He hoped the club’s commitment would encourage more people to support the campaign this year.
Last year’s inaugural Ramadan campaign raised enough funds to provide 400,000 school meals to children in the Middle East.
