(How have I not posted about this? Oh yeah, I was waiting for Jeremy to send me the pictures he took. I still am waiting, in fact. No worries: in the meantime, I am ripping one off a fb friend's wall.)
A few weeks ago, the charitable works branch of our church got together with UNHCR to provide help to Syrian refugees. In this particular case, this help took the form of hygiene kits that will be distributed to the refugees. The work took place on a Saturday morning. Jeremy was able to go; I wasn't. The venue was a huge UNHCR warehouse in Jebel Ali (Dubai).
Those are some church friends in the foreground. Jeremy is doing some heavy lifting in the background. As Jeremy explained it to me, there were boxes full of one individual item - toothbrushes, say, or shampoo. The volunteers' job that day was to take one item from each box and put it in another box that would eventually form a completed hygiene kit as it made its way down the line. Then, they stacked the boxes in palettes to be ready for shipping.
I think I heard there were about 140 volunteers there. Some were from our congregation. Others were from different Mormon congregations in the UAE. Others still probably weren't Mormon at all (the UNHCR employees, for example). About 5000 hygiene kits were assembled, and they were labeled only as coming from "LDS Charities." It's possible that a Syrian would know that acronym (really - remember that time a random guy in the Damascus Old City saw Jeremy wearing a BYU shirt and called out, "JOSEPH SMITH!!!"??), but not at all likely. The point is not to raise visibility of the church in Syrian refugee camps. The point is to provide them with hygiene kits.
I'm glad Jeremy could contribute to this project, even if I couldn't. I've helped put together hygiene kits before, mostly as a kid for church service projects, mostly intended for unfamiliar, far-flung regions of conflict, but this is the first time said service has had a personal connection.
A few weeks ago, the charitable works branch of our church got together with UNHCR to provide help to Syrian refugees. In this particular case, this help took the form of hygiene kits that will be distributed to the refugees. The work took place on a Saturday morning. Jeremy was able to go; I wasn't. The venue was a huge UNHCR warehouse in Jebel Ali (Dubai).
I think I heard there were about 140 volunteers there. Some were from our congregation. Others were from different Mormon congregations in the UAE. Others still probably weren't Mormon at all (the UNHCR employees, for example). About 5000 hygiene kits were assembled, and they were labeled only as coming from "LDS Charities." It's possible that a Syrian would know that acronym (really - remember that time a random guy in the Damascus Old City saw Jeremy wearing a BYU shirt and called out, "JOSEPH SMITH!!!"??), but not at all likely. The point is not to raise visibility of the church in Syrian refugee camps. The point is to provide them with hygiene kits.
I'm glad Jeremy could contribute to this project, even if I couldn't. I've helped put together hygiene kits before, mostly as a kid for church service projects, mostly intended for unfamiliar, far-flung regions of conflict, but this is the first time said service has had a personal connection.