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Doha
Along the road sped a white Honda Accord with its precious cargo. In its boot was a “gift” box containing food items that can feed a family or three bachelors for up to a month.
A few minutes later, the Accord pulled up in Al Thumama outside a villa that is home to a family whose lives have been turned upside down by the COVID-19 outbreak in Qatar.
“They had a decent life, and then came the coronavirus,” Sreejith P, the driver, told Qatar Tribune a day later.
“Their business collapsed and they were struggling to make the ends meet,” he added, without revealing any more than necessary to protect their identities.
After handing over the box to the family, Sreejith checked a list of places on his smartphone. His next stop: Matar Al Qadeem. By the time he called it a day, he had delivered 30 such boxes, helping nearly a hundred people stave off hunger for the next couple of weeks.
Sreejith, who works in the logistics sector, is one among the 22 volunteers of Qatar Sparsham, a group comprising expatriates from the South Indian state of Kerala (‘sparsham’ means touch in Malayalam, the native language of Kerala).
Humane 'touch'
The group has been providing food items as “Ramadan gifts” to families and individuals who are unable to earn a living amid the pandemic.
Spearheaded by Radio Malayalam 98.6 FM, the Qatar Sparsham’s Ramadan Gift initiative has so far seen the distribution of nearly 3,000 gift boxes — that is month-long sustenance for around 8,000 individuals from different countries since the outbreak.
“A lot of the people that we helped had been leading a good life before the outbreak”, said Noufal Abdul Rahman, the man behind the volunteering initiative.
“The impact of the pandemic is financially so devastating to some people that it has pushed them into debt and starvation, which can be a difficult reality to accept,” Rahman, who works as a marketing manager for the Radio Malayalam 98.6 FM, said.
“Each box that we give is our gift in this Holy Month of Ramadan. We don’t click pictures with the people who receive it. Their identities will be safe with us,” he added.
'Delivery heroes'
The Ramadan gift initiative is being carried out by a handful of volunteers from Qatar Sparsham’s nearly 1,000 members. Split into four teams, each team of volunteers has a specific job — registration, route planning, gift packing and delivery.
“For us, the volunteers who deliver the gifts are heroes. They willingly put their lives at risk to make the deliveries, often to virus hotspots and people in isolation”, Rahman said, affirming that all possible precautions are being taken to protect them against the virus infection.
“Currently, we are being overwhelmed by the calls for help. Most of the food items we distribute are ‘gifted’ by people, companies and organisations in Qatar. If we get more gifts, we could reach out to more people who are desperate for help,” he said.
According to the Rahman, Qatar Sparsham gets around 300 calls and distributes, on an average, 150 boxes, every day.
