In the lead up to Eid, students volunteer to help underprivileged children

AMMAN — Propelled by a season of benevolence, students from different universities around the Kingdom volunteered in several activities in Tafileh, distributing seasonal decorations and clothing to schoolchildren over the week leading up to Eid Al Adha.

Around 35 students engaged in several events in Tafileh, some 180 kilometres southwest of Amman, to provide least privileged children with a “better Eid”, organisers said.

“We have always come across stories of the lack of facilities in schools in Tafileh, but we did not know it was this bad until we went there and experienced it ourselves,” Rose Sari, a pharmacology student at the University of Jordan told The Jordan Times.

Sari said there were about 65 students in the school, 20 of whom were girls, who walk around five to seven kilometres from their homes to the school on a daily basis.  

“It is going to be winter soon and these children do not have enough clothes to keep them warm during their early morning walk to school,” Hadeel Muhaisen, the event’s organiser, said.

“We thought of giving them something they would benefit from,” the student added.

The school is located in northern Tafileh, near Karak, in one of the poverty pockets in Jordan. 

“People who live there lack many facilities due to the town’s location, so they tend to go somewhere that is 30 kilometres far from their homes to buy necessities, including bread,” Sari noted.

“On the occasion of Eid, we aim to spread positivity and happiness and suggest some solutions to the challenges residents face in their daily lives.”

Muhaisen said the project engaged students from different majors and interests.

“Many volunteers helped hairstyling the children and make them feel appreciated and loved in the lead up to Eid,” she added, as “little things matter”.

Sari’s initiative was fuelled by her belief that “it is every child’s right to celebrate Eid the way they imagined it to be.”