If you’ve been to one of Dubai’s more high-end Iftars, you’ll know that the hotels don’t hold back when it comes to kitting out a buffet, with mountains of food enough to feed the thousands, and then some.
However, a new initiative launched by Dubai Municipality is making sure these lavish Iftars are not just reserved for the region’s elite. Heafz Al Na’amah – meaning preserving the bounty that God gave – is a new campaign that helps feed the less fortunate.
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Heafz Al Na’amah is all about avoiding surplus waste. It sees the collection of excess food from hotels, weddings, homes and banquets and distributes them in labour camps and other less fortunate parts of the city.
Last year alone, thanks to Heafz Al Na’amah, more than 30,000 individual servings of food were donated from one hotel, the Al Bustan Rotana alone.
For Ramadan, the Heafz Al Na’amah initiative will involve surplus food being collected from the hotel Iftars, and channelled into Iftars for the needy by a number of approved charity groups.
One of the places around the city where the Iftars from Heafz Al Na’amah can be found is in the Al Multaqua Ballroom in the Dubai World Trade Centre.
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The public are also able to donate food to the needy via Heafz Al Na’amah, as long as the food is ready-to-eat or packaged and halal. Contact Dubai Municipality to find out how.
The Heafz Al Na’amah initiative isn’t the only campaign giving back this Ramadan – with the Sharing Fridges campaign having gained a lot of traction over the past couple of weeks, too.
Started by Australian expat Sumayyah Sayed, the Sharing Fridges campaign consists of people placing fridges outside of their houses – packed with food and drink so that the less fortunate are free to grab whatever they need to prepare themselves an Iftar meal.
The location of the fridges can be found on the Sharing Fridges’ Facebook group, which has garnered an impressive 13,000 members.
Image: Getty
