Charity champions and community campaigners across the kingdom are urging people to practise the spirit of giving throughout the holy month as they aim to distribute packages of goodness to those in need during Ramadan.
Miranthi Dole, who founded the unregistered charity called ‘A Box of Goodness’, has launched a Ramadan Food Drive and aims to distribute packages full of non-perishable products with her band of volunteers for the fifth consecutive year.
“With the help of generous hearts in our community, we are ensuring that everyone in need is able to observe the fast comfortably – inshallah,” said Ms Dole.
Since 2018, when the giving group has been collecting and distributing non-perishable food for Ramadan, it has shared more than 3,000 food packs with members of the Migrant Workers Protection Society, women assisted by the Shamsaha women’s crisis intervention group and families in need.
A Box of Goodness is also collaborating with the well-known Lettuce Run ladies group in which individuals can join the Run for Ramadan on April 5 from 4.30pm at Bahrain Harbour for the Run. The only entry fee would be donation of non-perishable food items for the Ramadan Food Drive. To register, message @lettuce.run on Instagram.
People are being urged to donate items such as dates, rice, dal, chickpeas, flour, oil, spices, sugar, tea, milk powder, coffee, harees, jareesh, green gram, sago, ghee, pasta, noodles, coconut milk powder, oats, potatoes and canned foods.
Collections will run until April 20 at the Bahrain Rugby Football Club in Saar and a drop off site in Juffair. Message @aboxofgoodness on Instagram and Facebook for details.
The unregistered, not-for-profit charity champions, OneHeartBahrain, is also launching a series of activities in collaboration with its sister group We Care, better known as @WeCareBH on Instagram.
“We help people share the blessings with those less fortunate and will facilitate charitable outreach events in partnership with others,” said Birthe van der Heijden, the social strategist and meditation teacher who founded the OneHeartBahrain community driven group.
The group will support a labour camp of approximately 50 workers with food through a combination of ‘LuLu Food Boxes’ and ‘Fresh Meals for Iftar’.
If they manage to collect more donations, then they will extend this aid to other camps. They also hope to work in close partnership with Bahrain Food Bank in helping it deliver supplies to other low-income labour camps.
They will also be staging a ‘Together We Eat’ event where members of the labour community will be able to dine out together with the wider public planned for April 21. They are awaiting ministry approval. For details on location and other activities, check out @oneheartbahrain on Instagram.
The Live in Colour unregistered charity group is also collecting donations to distribute to labour camps across the kingdom every Friday throughout the holy month. The collections run until April 24 of items such as rice, dal, flour, spices, tea, cookies, coffee powder, canned foods and more. For details, contact 33006543.
The Pakistani Women’s Association Bahrain is also running a Ramadan Drive of clothing and food to be distributed in the coming days. Follow @pwabahrain on Instaragram for details.
The Bahrain Red Crescent Society (BRCS), which received 8,000 units of clothes and footwear worth $26,500 from Apparel Group, will be distributing a part of the donations to needy families inside Bahrain who receive monthly aid from the organisation, while the remainder will be distributed to Syrian refugees living in camps in neighbouring countries.
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