This Valentine’s Day why not forget the roses, cliché teddy bears and chocolates (FYI these only impressed us when we were teenagers) and spread the love by doing something charitable.
This February 12, from 8am to noon, local charity Dubai Mums Helping Hands is sharing the love in the Al Quoz labour camp, creating a pampering day including free haircuts, massages, manicures and breakfast as well as donating clothes to the 450 women in the camp.
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How can you help? The event is fully created through donations, so if you have a food company help feed the masses or, even simpler, if you have any items you’d like to move out of your corporate or personal space (we’re sure your wardrobe could do with a spring clean) get in touch with Dubai Mums Helping Hands who will collect the goods and distribute them to the women.
Stephanie Sutherland, the founder of Dubai Mums Helping Hands, said: “This is our way of getting people to identify with people as people and breakdown the walls of us and them – which we hope leads to more compassion and caregiving.”
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As part of the campaign, the charity has featured profiles of some of the labourers on their Facebook page. Meet some of the women who you could be helping this Valentine’s:
Augustine came to Dubai three years ago and is now a trained pastry chef and hopes to return to Bali and open her own bakery. She has learned a lot here but misses her son. As a single mum, she must support him.
This anonymous lady is dealing with the pain of a 13-year-old son living with leukaemia in the Philippines. Her grief is unmistakable.
If this lady doesn’t find work soon she will be sent home, which she can’t afford with three kids to feed. She wants to be a secretary and has an associates degree in computer secretarial work. She took a contract for two years with a cleaning company, to secure a future in Dubai.
WANTED: An interview for this lady. Excellent English, a cheerful personality and 11 years of experience as a secretary in the Philippines. For a copy of her CV message Dubai Mums Helping Hands
Photos: Abbi Kemp
