At Al Ghadeer Crafts, most of our work is focused on helping women living in Abu Dhabi who have stumbled on hard times.
We teach them how to use their creative skills to earn an income, by making traditional craft products that we sell on their behalf.
But we’re also seeing the refugee crisis of our brothers and sisters around the world who are suffering. As a non-profit organisation, we know that giving promotes more giving. When we do good, then good things happen to us.
We thought we could also do something very simple to help refugee children.
Last Ramadan, a lovely mother and her son in Abu Dhabi came to us with the idea for a children-to-children initiative. The idea was that Al Ghadeer would provide especially donated and printed boxes that would be filled up by children in Abu Dhabi then sent to children living in a refugee camp in Jordan as Eid gifts.
Children in refugee camps should have all the necessities in life because the Red Crescent provides them with food and shelter. But as children, they still need to be able to play, dream and be kids.
We decided to make three different kinds of boxes for the children – one on the theme of “build”, one “play” and one “dream”. It happened to be the end of the school year, so it was the perfect time for children in Abu Dhabi to give away their things.
The “build” boxes were filled with Lego bricks, so they could build together. The “dream” box had stationery supplies, so the children could draw their dreams. And in the “play” box was a ball, so they could play together.
We approached five schools in Abu Dhabi who were all very excited to join our initiative. We chose schools with very international demographics – Cranleigh, Sheikh Zayed Private Academy (the girls’ and boys’ schools), the American International School and schools under Aldar Academy.
What was special was that the children themselves customised the boxes. They drew their country’s flag and their name, and sent a nice message to the refugee children to read when they received it. Among the messages were “I love you” and “Dreams come true”. They also decorated the boxes with stickers, ribbons and all sorts of cute crafts.
We had at least 2,000 boxes –we really gathered a lot, to the extent that we couldn’t keep up with the boxes coming in, because we had to check each one. It was a big process to take these boxes all the way to the refugee camps.
Hamad Al Kaabi, who is an amazing photographer and a UN goodwill ambassador, volunteered on our behalf to travel to the Emirates Red Crescent refugee camp, distribute the gifts and photograph the children’s joy on receiving them.
We want to do this initiative again, at the beginning of the next school year. This initiative enabled people living in the UAE to give to charity in an acceptable, legitimate way. I know there are a lot of people living in the UAE who want to give back during this Year of Giving, but they don’t know how. So this is an opportunity for them.
It’s also about children giving back, because children are so used to receiving, especially here in the UAE. We want them to be aware of some of what’s happening in the world, to be grateful for their situation, and to be compassionate about other people’s suffering.
Mariam Al Kendi runs Al Ghadeer Crafts, a non-profit initiative which operates under the umbrella of the Emirates Red Crescent.
