IDLIB, Syria (Arab News) – A Jordanian volunteer group has been on the Ramadan frontline in militant-held northwest Syria dishing out home-cooked meals for hundreds of vulnerable families in camps for internally displaced people.
Members of Hathi Hayati, a non-governmental organization, have been providing food during the holy month of fasting.
Umm Ali, a cook internally displaced from Aleppo, has been working at a soup kitchen in the town of Zardana, north of Idlib, for the past few years.
She said: “Lentil soup is an essential part of the meal.” However, she also makes other traditional Middle Eastern dishes such as labaniya and kabsa, salads, sour beans, drinks, tamarind, and liquorice as sides.
“We used to send out meals, but now we bring the pots, cook the food, and distribute it in the camps. We serve the food to the people, and they take it home with them to eat,” she added.
Although the Ramadan project in Syria began three years ago, the team this year has adopted a different approach.
Zaki al-Saleh, a Hathi Hayati volunteer, told Arab News: “We decided on a new idea, which is a buffet. Families come and take meals from the buffet and head over to any tent to eat privately.”
The Hathi Hayati team has been lifting spirits with its freshly cooked meals and has created an authentic Ramadan ambience by adorning its buffet tent with themed ornaments and lights.
Operating at different camps each day, between 200 and 250 fresh meals are produced, sometimes more, helping relieve some of the pressures of daily life for inhabitants.
Mohammed Abd al-Fattah Duaimis, from Maarat al-Numan in northwest Syria, manages the Andalusia camp, which hosts 200 families.
He told Arab News: “Some heads of households are taking care of 11 or 12 people and have the burden of providing food. Most of the families in our camp have more than eight members.
“They have no source of income; therefore, families find that the provided meals relieve some of that burden if not all of it.”
He said an iftar meal during Ramadan would cost a family the equivalent of more than $5 to prepare, which was unaffordable for people living in such camps.