Friday 23 January 2009

Deliver Hope to the People of Gaza

Assalamu alaykum and greetings to you all,

As some of you may be aware, recently i asked you guys to donate money to help ship urgent supplies to the needy in Gaza. This is an update of what happened to your hard earned wonga (and to prove i haven't been relaxing at The poolside on a luxury holiday courtesy of you lot!). In all we managed to collect roughly £1000 squids which worked out at over 5000AED in the local currency. 

Before I continue,  just some quick political analysis of the situation there...this to me is no more a 'war' than can be considered a war by Hitler against the Jews in the Warsaw ghetto. It was genocide and ethnic cleansing then and it it is genocide and ethnic cleansing now with the Gaza strip the new ghetto and Israel the new Nazi's. Now that there is a ceasfire everybody needs to continue to do what they can to keep up the political pressure to help free the people of Gaza from the opression of the zionist regime. 

Anyway, this is where some of your money went...


because people have lost their homes, large canvas tents that can accommodate a family of 6...


and loads of blankets to help keep them warm as it is winter there...


the bulk of the money was spent on medical supplies. pictured is a selection of assorted hospital grade  bandages, swabs, plasters...


some of the most expensive items were medicines including wholesale size packs of painkillers and anti-biotics. other supplies include emergency first aid kits and specialist stuff for hospitals such as the orangey iodine wash used for sterilising wounds before operating. on top of this the rest of the money was spent on dried foods such as milk powder, noodles tinned stuff etc. and personal hygiene products such as soap and washing up powder.


Once everything was collected, a bunch of us went down to the Aramex sorting and logistics depot in Dubai to help out with the sorting out of donations. Now personally I have never helped out before doing this kind of stuff so seeing this was quite an eye opener for me.


There was a throng of activity as we found volunteers from all walks of life helping out and doing their bit to help the people of Gaza.

tasks included...

Forming a human chain to unload trucks that were delivering donations being brought in from all over the country...


sorting everything and placing into various labeled bins...


to be packed onto pallets and loaded onto trucks to make the trip to the Gaza Strip via Jordan to be distributed by various humanitarian aid agencies including the UN and Red Crescent. 

Finally I just want to say a big thank you to everyone who contributed both in terms of money, physically helping and moral support. I am sure you have made a difference to the lives of the oppressed Gazans. That's enough out of me so until the next time.

ps. yes, you have figured there are lots of pics of us messing around and having some fun but i didn't want to detract from the seriousness of why we were there so i will save them for next time. ;-)