The Al-Imdaad Foundation’s Operation Winter Warmth Campaign has kicked off with recent distributions in the Free State, the Eastern Cape and Gauteng provinces.
The campaign will go on to distribute blankets and winter accessories to thousands of recipients across South Africa’s provinces. Last year, some 30 000 blankets in addition to winter wear such as gloves and warm hats were distributed to needy communities in a wide area of circulation.
The campaign seeks always to address the neediest communities such as patients at hospitals, rural school children, dwellers of informal settlements, refugees, orphans and widows among many others.
In the recent distribution that launched the 2016 campaign in the Eastern Cape, the Al-Imdaad Foundation worked with the Department of Education to bring warmth to school children at Eastern Cape schools. Eastern Cape District Director and delegates from the Office of Chief Director, as well as Circuit Managers from the King William’s Town Department of Education were present at the launch.
Six schools were brought together for the event at the premises of Ndevana Primary School at the Ndevana location near King William’s Town where students from each school received blankets, ear muffles and winter scarves.
Due to the ongoing drought, each school was also given ten by ten litre water containers to store reserve water supplies. Al-Imdaad Foundation’s Eastern Cape co-ordinator, Hajee Abu Bakr Patel said that they had an “agreement with the Department of Education to distribute 10 000 ear muffles to students at 50 schools across the province”.
In the Free State distribution, Al-Imdaad Foundation’s Gauteng office partnered with the University of the Free State (UFS) Muslim Students Association (MSA) to distribute blankets and winter accessories in the provincial capital, Bloemfontein.
In Gauteng, teams worked hard to co-ordinate distributions in Mamelodi in Tshawane, in Mayfair and in Riegpark and the Ramaphosa Informal Settlement on the East Rand. Hundreds of elderly and disadvantaged community members received blankets and winter accessories in these areas.
The campaign will continue for the next few months with the aim to help provide needy communities with adequate protection against the winter’s cold. The Al-Imdaad Foundation works closely with local authorities and organisations to help identify the neediest beneficiaries in each area.
The innovative partnership with Air Mercy, which saw Al-Imdaad Foundation distributing winter supplies via airplane to isolated rural hospitals in areas of northern KwaZulu-Natal, will also be replicated this year with another rural area to be targeted. Last year’s partnership saw six flights distributing blankets at four hospitals in areas that would have been difficult to reach via land. Both parties are committed to make this year’s air distributions a success as well.
The Al-Imdaad Foundation’s Operation Winter Warmth Campaign has been ongoing since 2009 and in this time, tens of thousands of South Africans have received a share of warmth in the winter. This year, for just R70 you can support this project by sponsoring a blanket that will help provide warmth and comfort for a vulnerable family. Our blankets are of the highest quality and exceed the minimum standards set out by the United Nations and the International Federation of the Red Crescent and Cross.
For more information or to support this project, please call 0861 786 243 or visit www.alimdaad.com
