Volunteer teams every afternoon distribute and engage in preparing meals in Nablus during the holy fasting month of Ramadan. One group engages in cooking another in packaging a third in distribution and a fourth in delivering meals to poor families in the city camps and villages.
As a hard-working team they start working at Nablus charitable Takiye located in the Old City and sponsored by the Zakat Committee of Nablus. More than 1500 meals are distributed daily during the holy month of Ramadan with the help of benevolent people and community institutions.
The benevolent people of the city and its institutions are quick to donate in-kind materials and money to the Takiye which has become a charity landmark a form of social solidarity and a unique example in the city.
Breather to the poor
Sameh Tabaila head of the Nablus Zakat Committee told the PIC that the Takiye has become a source of relief for many poor and needy families both in Ramadan and in other times through meals provided to them in cooperation with generous people.
Seven years of work of the Takiye were enough to make a lot of people donate to the Takiye. “Hundreds of families in and out of Nablus benefit from the meals” he says. “For them these meals are the only source of food during these tough economic conditions.”
“Since the beginning of the holy month we have distributed more than 1500 meals a day and as the month approaches its end meals increase significantly due to the increasing number of donors.”
As for the criteria of distribution of these meals he said: “At the Takiye and in cooperation with the Zakat Committee and institutions in the city and (refugee) camps and villages we have specific lists of poor and needy families and those who do not have any breadwinner as a result of illness death or social conditions whom we give full meals on daily basis.”
Self-Initiatives
Active youth groups and volunteers contribute to the success of the Takiye especially during the distribution phase which takes time and effort. Young men and women rush to volunteer inside and outside the Takiye.
Osama Hamami one of the volunteers in Nablus’s Takiye told the PIC that he and a large group of his friends are volunteering to pack and distribute meals.
“We did not know the value of volunteering until we saw the great impact we made on the poor. When we became involved we knew there was a large number of poor families who really needed help” he said.
Hamami noted that many volunteers have their own break fasting meal away from their families as a result of their preoccupation with distributing food to the poor families using their own cars or motorcycles without hesitation or boredom.
In its seventh year the Nablus Charitable Takiye left its impact as an example of cooperative and social work and became an example to follow among the city’s institutions as well as other cities and part of the increasing social solidarity atmosphere of Nablus in Ramadan.
