Jenifer Sayyed
The holy month of Ramadan focuses on sharing and caring for people around you. Muslims around the world are engaged not only in prayers and fasting, but also in giving & sharing more. And so this month, it took one step further – sharing fridge too.
Residents of Dubai, United Arab Emirates are stocking over sharing fridges with food and water across the city making it available to the poor and hungry during the holy month of Ramadan.
The initiative behind Sharing Fridge came from Sumayyah Sayed, a 29-year-old Australian woman living in Dubai, during the first week of Ramadan, which has now spread, to more than 90 sharing fridges set up across UAE. She was inspired by Fikra Yel, another Dubai resident who has had a fridge set up outside her house for about three years.
The fridges are seek to serve blue collor workers, labourers, security guards & drivers who live in poor conditions, earn low wages, many of whom work outdoors in temperatures exceeding 100 degrees Fahrenheit and they are not able to go home for iftar because of work commitments. Due to Ramadan Fridge, they are able to have fresh fruits, foods and drinks which they could have hardly afford. This is available to non-Muslim workers too.
Sayed started a Sharing Fridges Facebook page to spread the word. Her friends and neighbours joined in and started to keep the fridge filled with both hot and cold food items outside the home in the garage or the lawns. The social media had again worked & attracted many people around the city. It has also attracted fridge distributors and companies and they too started contributing in the noble cause.
Sharing fridge spread wildly and refrigerators were soon installed in different areas of Dubai, Abu Dhabi, Sharjah and Ajman and anonymous volunteers have been keeping them stocked with food and drinks whole day.
The most popular items donated have been fruits, vegetables, milk products and drinks, and it is stocked up as soon any items are over, according to the project’s Facebook page. “When the workers arrive at the fridge and they take what they like, the smile on their faces feels like a million dollars,” Sayed said to HuffingtonArabi.
May this happiness & sharing Fridge continuous after Ramadan also, as most of the times excess foods are thrown, so instead it will get benefit to the community. But before doing this, securities and civic responsibilities have to be maintained in each countries like UAE so that stealing doesn’t happen.
