Feedback on Ramadan Relief Project 2010 with TAF
Hi All,
The 2010 Ramadan Relief Project experience was amazing to say the least. This time we partner up Somali Awareness through Volunteering & Education (S.A.V.E.). They are based in Sweden; they are young Somali-Swedish professionals who were impressed what we have done in the past. They genuinely want to help their people in Somalia and I hope we see many more like them in the Diaspora. T he 2010 RRP process was a lot easier this time. Having people who worked with us previously on the ground and delegating them to start the work before TaF team even arrived was awesome. TaF and its team of volunteers collected the funds from the community. While the TaF team was in Dubai people advised us to buy the food from Dubai market and ship to Somalia, because it is cheaper. However, at TaF we believe buying the food from a local market in order to support the local economy. We packaged the food; every family got 15 Kilos of Rice, 15 Kilos of Flour, 10 Kilos of Sugar, A large canister of Oil.
The TaF team travelled to different three IDP camps in the city and one outskirts of the city in order to identify the families in each of the four camps that were in most need of the food. The most difficult part was not providing food to all the camp residents, however the IDP residents helped us choose after we instructed them the selection criteria and they were gracious enough to nominate among themselves who needed our help the most.
From there we decided on the 250 Families that needed our support the most, and began to distribute. In the inner-city camps it wasn’t safe for us to go and distribute so, we were able to get a bus and transport the family representatives to a safe location, and give them the food and bring them back home. So we distributed to 150 inner city camp residents, to 3 camps (Bula Ba’alay, Halaboqad, and Sinai). Each camp had an average of 2000 families living in them. Our last camp, Margaga, is about 60 kilometers north of Galkayo. We distributed 100 families.
Each camp that we distributed the food to we make sure the residents knew that we were delivering the food and the people who paid for it are other Somalis just like them in the Diaspora. The camp residents and TaF team prayed together that the suffering of our nations ends soon. We prayed for peace and prosperity to almighty.
This was an experience that we wish all of friends, families the community in general should at some point in their lives to experience. The best feelings one can get/have is to help someone else’ life who is in need and we at TaF are more than glad to experience again. Ramadan Relief Project has become annual event that we will definitely continue!
THANKS A MILLION TO EVERYONE WHO WERE ABLE TO MAKE THIS HAPPEN AGAIN IN 2010!!!
SPECIAL thanks to our VOLUNTEERS, our DONORS & last but not least S.A.V.E. Together we can make a difference; your efforts are appreciated more than you can imagine. May Allah reward you for all your good deeds in this life and the one after.
Cheers,
Abdi, Founder of TAF, The African Future
source: http://theafricanfuture.org/blog/?cat=16
source: http://theafricanfuture.org/blog/?cat=16
About us
- S.A.V.E
- (Somali Awareness through Volunteering and Education) is a non-profit organization (NGO) whose purpose is to assist our brothers and sisters in Somalia. Our organizations vision is to promote health, education, peace, inclusion and combating poverty. We want to reach our goals through information and education about home, cooperate with other organizations in Sweden, collection, activities, volunteer work and work to encourage the younger generation to education. SAVE's primary goal is to facilitate the lives of the needy in Somalia that will actively work through the collections through activities organized by SAVE and with different organizations in Sweden. This enables us to create a common network that is working for a goal. By this, we will together be able to reach out to the young who have no role models. To even think long term we also aim to start up various projects in the country that promotes education and better awareness. DONATE Bank: Swedbank Account Name: SAVE Account Number: 8327-9,914 830 414-1 BG or sms "SAVE" to 72672 (to donate 25kr) Donation Information: This is only if you are in Sweden.