Zubaida Noor's charity provides food to hundreds of households during Ramadan - G.M.B. Akash / Panos Pictures
August is the month of Ramadan and we have a lot of activities going on. Many individual donors want to give money to the poor during Ramadan, so that they have food to break their fast. We are helping them uphold their religious obligations. People send us the money and we buy food to give out.
We have been doing these Ramadan activities for a couple of years now, but the scale is increasing. We give out food packages to around 400 households. These include dry food and goat meat. This year we have chosen three flood-affected areas in which to distribute the food.
We are also planning to set up a food kitchen in Peshawar to feed people at the breaking of the fast at sunset. We usually have a good arrangement with a restaurant or hotel in Peshawar, and they provide mats and ovens for baking the bread. We manage to feed around 100 people at least.
In the first few days, not that many people know about it, but then as word spreads (we don’t advertise) lots of people come to eat. We usually find a good location near a mosque or a hospital, with an open space, so that people can sit on the grass and eat.
We have been doing this for a couple of years now and with more experience, we are learning to do it better. We serve meat and rice and bread and the restaurant or hotels provide the plates, cups and so on.
We also set up kitchens in selected villages. In the villages we get one household to cook the food and they give out the prepared food to the rest of the people in the village at sunset. Every year, I give money as my own personal contribution. A lot of our money comes from the Muslim community settled in Australia. Every donation helps.
As told to Rina Saeed Khan
