Subject: help package 50,000 basic school kits and 50,000 hygiene kits for the Children of Gaza

Dubai Cares is joining a united front of UAE-based relief and charitable organizations to pledge humanitarian assistance and mobilize the UAE community to help the children of Gaza.

There are approximately 275,000 students of primary school age in Gaza and Dubai Cares is asking for your help to support them in this time of need.

Here’s how you can help. Dubai Cares is currently recruiting volunteers to help package 50,000 basic school kits and 50,000 hygiene kits for the Children of Gaza. Approximately 150 participants are needed each day for this event as we are aiming to assemble approximately 10,000 kits a day . We would be honored if you could join us.

Dubai Cares will supply all of the items required for the kits and we need your help to pack and prepare them for shipping to the children of Gaza.

Date: Wednesday, January 14 through January 20, 2009
Venue: DIFC – Emperor Hall
Weekdays: 4:00 p.m. – 8:00 p.m.
Friday January 16, 2009: 2:00 -6:00 p.m.
Saturday January 17, 2009: 10:00 a.m.-6:00 p.m.

You are welcome to join us anytime. Please bring your friends and family to the venue during our working hours and we will put you to work. You can also help us spread the word by forwarding this email to others who you believe may want to help. We will have snacks and beverages available.

Should you have any queries or concerns, please do not hesitate to contact us at: gaza /at/ dubaicares /dot/ ae

We hope you will be able to join with us to show solidarity for the children of Gaza.

If you want a map to DIFC:

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Throughout the past few days people in the UAE have been very procative in their efforts to do whatever they could towards Gaza. I am very pleased with the contributions of the people around me, be it monetary, supplying food or even a lending hand.

While my friends and I shopped, a few of the guys from the group have been in the Aramex warehouse sorting up supplies and boxing them, and they told me that within the few hours they were there they filled up 7 giant lorries and send them away, and the warehouse still had a long way to go. Collections to the Aramex campaign are ending tomorrow though I believe you can still go to the warehouse and help with whatever you could.

keep this shopping list with you

If you want to be part of the Gaza Aid Package Project – Dubai, go visit the Facebook group.

Meanwhile, people took it to the streets across Dubai, Sharjah, Abu Dhabi and Ras al Khaima and thousands of people joined in a peaceful march (approved by the Ministry of Interior) for hours demanding something be done about the crisis. High profile people also joined in the rally. Images from Gulfnews.

During the rally, the Red Crescent had its campaign running to receive donations via drop boxes or through SMS, and while it ran from 2 PM to 9 PM it was able to generate a whopping 315 million AED (roughly $86 million). UAE President His Highness Shaikh Khalifa bin Zayed Al Nahyan and His Highness Shaikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum also pledged to build 1200 homes for the Palestinians in Gaza and the ruler of Umm Al Quwain His Highness Shaikh Saud bin Rashid Al Mualla ordered that the mosques of Gaza to be renovated.

It’s truly heart warming to see this kind of reaction taking place around you, but the question begging to ask itself is: Is it really enough?

Remember that the world needs just a little compassion for it to be different for the better. Every day I wake up amazed at how the majority of the population are bonding together for one cause. It shows you a great deal that if there is a time for us to change, there is no better time than NOW.

Let’s just do all we could as civilians, to help other civilians less fortunate than us.

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We are not in the business of public relations or improving our image. We are fighting against terror…

So let me get this straight: bombing a school/UN-shelter is now considered fighting against terror? It’s clearly obvious they’re not improving their image but will they be able to handle the consequences? However the Quote of the Year award goes to Tzipi Livni:

Is there a humanitarian crisis? There is no humanitarian crisis in Gaza

Of course she can’t comprehend what a humanitarian crisis is as she is barely ISO-certified as an organic life-form.

I am not going to brood over the matter, but you can go to Qwaider’s blog for more opinions on the general subject.

The Universal Street amaze me at their commitment to help the cause. As demonstrated in NY (read about it in Batoul’s blog).

MORE WAYS TO SUPPORT

Another venue of relief opened in Dubai as 50 pharmacies now have medicine-for-Gaza packages. You can read more about them in moryarti’s blog. However you can take the list and buy it at your local pharmacy outside the UAE and donate it. Don’t forget the babies – pick up baby formulas!

There is also another rally in Dubai Mamzar Park this Friday at 4 PM. Mamzar Rally Event.

UPDATE: For anyone who can donate some time, UAE Aramex needs help in their warehouse sorting out all the donations. They are located near Dragonmart area and need as much help as possible. They are working from 9am – 12 midnight, so please go any time until Jan 11/12. Map of Dragon Mart

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What I wanted to say is that the past week has taught us a great deal about our situation as a global community. It has exposed deficits in both sides of the war, the public’s stance against the global governments as well as how ridiculously absurd of a concept it is to not have a voice in a supposedly-democratic world.

The message that the average Gazan citizen is showing us is that not only do we have to defend our rights but also have compassion.

We have to be compassionate about our lives, our friends and family and our circumstances. Observing the war shows you how little your problems really are, and that most of them are not truly worth the fuss. While it is important to be realistic about your own problems (because, granted, anything compared to war is nothing), it is also important to realize that with a little more compassion in your life, at least some of the problems would be resolved.

Do not hate yourself. Most of us are living with the guilt that we cannot help the Palestinian people. But we cannot help them if we continually live in this guilt. We have to be compassionate towards ourselves and others, and the guys at 7iber and the whole Aramex movement across Jordan and the UAE showed how a little compassion can go a long way, for us as individuals – that we overcame the guilt and helped – and for the Palestinians who are, hopefully, receiving our donations and the moral support.

My best friend is cooking up a great plan for aid that doesn’t require you to move off your seat, and I would be informing you about it when we have it settled.

In these times, appreciate what you have, appreciate your life, and do not forget those less fortunate. Be realistic and give attention to problems that truly require your attention. Love your friends, your spouses, kids, family, and most importantly, love yourself, so that you can love others.

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Heck, even animals are much better and more compassionate than we are. 

Tomorrow people across the world will be partying and celebrating New Year, watching fireworks and competing against other countries/cities on the best fireworks display.

I myself won’t be attending the fireworks. There really is nothing to celebrate. If this is what the “New Year” brings, what’s to celebrate?

Yes, “life goes on”, but sometimes you need to pause to take a look. In a moving train you barely see the scenery. However, if in the background there is a tree lit up in flames, you’d pause, concentrate and take a good look. And you can do that while the train is still moving.

So far, presidents of the countries that constitute this corrupt world are phone calling each other to end this war. I can only assume a typical phone call goes like this:

President A: OMG! Did you see the news?!

President B: Yeah! Well my secretary told me then I had to watch it when President C called.

President A: We must do something!

President B: Indeed! Let’s make a statement of condemnation.

President A: Perfect! How about a summit?

President B: Great idea, we can group-condemn and the world can see we are as upset as they are.

But here’s the truth. These presidents are not protected by the fight-for-freedom-banner-carrying US. Israel is, and with the US just nodding, everything is suddenly humanitarian. Hamas are the enemy. Palestinians are the enemy. Kids eventually grow up to fight, so they’re the enemy too.

It’s of course, humanitarian. I mean, God forbid, a person in Gaza – cut off from the whole world – might fire a cylinder to hit the pavement and disturb people having a spa in Tel Aviv. “Oh Uhed, these kids make too much noise in the neighborhood”… “yes dear… guys, wipe them out”.

Those who yell and shout against Israel’s massacres are accused of hostility against Israel and antisemitism.

Come on guys, really, are you that stupid? Israel has a record of being chronically retarded in terms of anything humanitarian, claiming the land is “rightfully” theirs. They claim to have been “before Arabs” for thousands of years. Yet it took them till 1948 to decide to “settle” into someone else’s garden.

Israel is one ugly duckling that would grow into anything but a swan. It’s laughable, really, if you look at it from an alien’s perspective – how a group of people occupying a small piece of land on the whole planet is running the Global Show and everyone is an audience.

“But what CAN you do, really?” is a question that has always been asked. And no one – honestly – knows how to answer, including myself. We all have the rage, we all have the passion, and we’re all pissed off.

We have been conditioned by our governments – puppets in the Global Show – to not have any reaction. Any riot from us would put our countries in an “embarrassing” spot. Though if you look at it, EVERYONE across the world rallying against this creulty shows everyone else a clear message on what the good majority of people want.

And democracy goes with the majority, right? Or are the voters selected? 

There can’t be two states. There is only one state, which is Palestine, with Jerusalem its capital. We won’t stop Jews from their religion or a pilgrimage. We’ve allowed that for years across history. Jerusalem’s Quarters were not named randomly.

If you insist on having Israel as a state, then why doesn’t Big Cousin Bush donate a state to Israel? How about Alaska? We shouldn’t second-guess Israel anyway, right?

“The Land of the Free” isn’t the US – it’s Gaza. Even with their isolation from the rest of the world, the massacres, the oppression, Gazans are, without a doubt, the most powerful people on Earth.

That’s what freedom is.

You can visit Ali’s blog and moryarti’s to check on how to symbolically help in the US and Dubai, respectively.

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AnibusGraph from deviantART has created the following banner for everyone to use freely as they wish. You may download it, print it, crop it, do anything you like… support Gaza!

You may also browse for other art here.

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An international relief agency executive called on the international community to help children in Gaza, whom he said are literally facing extinction as a result of almost two years of an Israeli blockade against the strip. – Gulfnews

I couldn’t have said it better myself.

A few minutes ago on Al-Jazeera, a major in the Israeli army was asked if those little kids were on the list of “terrorists” that are to be killed.

Earlier they were listing every single leader I have heard of condemning the assault on Gaza that left 225 dead (as of this writing), and an urgent Arab Summit is to be called.

Till when is condemnation a sufficient “action”?

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