Ramadan 'Kareem' with thousands of free meals in Damascus

'Khasa Algooa'  is a charity campaign started from the heart of Damascus where the Umayyad Mosque is situated with noble purpose to provide food for fasting people during the holy month, Ramadan, with 1200 free breakfast meal everyday. 

”Khasa Aljoo’a” is a very common colloquial Arabic phrase means “we will defeat hunger” or “no more hunger as long as I am here” and it was initiated by 20 enthusiastic Syrian youth.

“we were 20  volunteers, put our plans, distributed duties, and swear that we will not fail, we cried  first day, but it turned into happiness when the meals were delivered to people” said one on the participants in the “help” group.

Shout loud “Khasa Aljoo’a” 

Volunteers share their feelings and the difficulties they face every day on their Facebook page, “help  Khasa Aljoo’a”, they have recently added new contact number because they have huge volume of calls and they express their happiness because they are now sure that they will fulfill the promise they give to defeat hunger by the word “Khasa Aljoo’a”. 

One of the participants in the campaign explained the job they do, “The main principle of  this campaign that we don't accept money, we only receive food and then forward it to people who would cook it and then distribute  meals to people who need it according to names provided by trusted figures in Damascus neighborhood”.

Many restaurants volunteered, one of them is "Lou Restaurant" that facilitated its kitchen and that helped in increasing the production, and helped large number of young people to join the work. Hanin Cafe and Abo Ali Chicken took part in the campaign as well.

 The participants were happy because this Campaign “Help Khasa  Aljoo’a”  help in getting people in Damascus to help each other, where some trader in Harika provide money, others in the wholesale market  promise to provide vegetables and fruits for the whole month and even some taxi drivers refuse to get their fair when they know the aim of the journey.

The echo of this Campaign soon arrived to Lebanon, Jordan and Egypt, and that encourages the Syrians lives in those countries to do the same.

However, this campaign deepened the feeling of alienation and nostalgia for the Syrians who live outside the country but that encourage some of them to help and they were advised to send money to trusted people in Syria to forward it to the group.