{"id":9849,"date":"2014-07-12T19:26:29","date_gmt":"2014-07-12T19:26:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/wilayah.info\/en\/?p=9849"},"modified":"2014-07-12T19:26:29","modified_gmt":"2014-07-12T19:26:29","slug":"hezbollah-sets-up-soup-kitchen-to-feed-the-capitals-poorest","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wilayah.info\/en\/hezbollah-sets-up-soup-kitchen-to-feed-the-capitals-poorest\/","title":{"rendered":"Hezbollah sets up soup kitchen to feed the capital\u2019s poorest"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

BEIRUT:\u00a0Mustafa Khuraizat<\/a>\u00a0and his fellow volunteers from Hezbollah\u2019s reserves hurried to fold cardboard boxes. Nearby, another volunteer lit the fire under the cooking stoves.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen we are asked to go to the field of jihad, we go,\u201d Khuraizat said. \u201cAnd when we are asked to serve people, we serve the people.\u201d<\/p>\n

The 18-year-old volunteer helps cook meals, package them in boxes and deliver them to some 700 local families receiving food aid through the \u201cTable of Imam Zain al-Abidin,\u201d a kitchen and food distribution project set up by\u00a0Hezbollah<\/a>\u00a0to provide for the needy during Ramadan.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe take pride in being the servants of these people,\u201d Khuraizat said. \u201cWe are servants of the people. We hope they accept this service.\u201d<\/p>\n

The project is named after Imam Zain al-Abidin, the great-grandson of the\u00a0Prophet Mohammad<\/a>\u00a0and a figure revered in particular by Shiites who was known for delivering aid and food secretly to the poor.<\/p>\n

The great hall near the Rawdat al-Shahidain memorial was not far from a neighborhood struck by a car bomb attack last month in Tayyouneh.<\/p>\n

But the mood was different here, the smell of massive piles of all kinds of fruits and vegetables filling the air. Female volunteers stuffed plastic bags with green beans, cauliflowers, eggplants, radishes, oranges and other produce, as children scurried around wearing stickers that said \u201ckhadim,\u201d or servant of the poor.<\/p>\n

One end of the hall sported portraits of Iran\u2019s Ayatollah Khomeini and Ayatollah Khamenei, while on the other end the portraits of Hezbollah\u2019s leaders \u2013 Secretary-General Sayyed Hasan Nasrallah, Imad Mughniyeh, Abbas al-Musawi and Sheikh\u00a0Ragheb Harb<\/a>\u00a0\u2013 hung above dozens of volunteers.<\/p>\n

The walls were adorned with Quranic verses, some praising those who feed the needy, orphans and prisoners of war.<\/p>\n

Hezbollah carried out a survey to identify the needy families that would receive the aid in four of Beirut\u2019s poorer neighborhoods \u2013 Ghobeiri, Shiyah, Horsh\u00a0Beirut<\/a>\u00a0and Sabra.<\/p>\n

Sheikh Abbas Harakeh, the Hezbollah official in charge of the program, said that 700 families were identified and earmarked for assistance. One third of them are Sunnis.<\/p>\n

The aid program, organized by Hezbollah\u2019s Beirut branch, includes several components. The first is a basic package delivered to the families at the start and middle of Ramadan, which includes supplies like ghee, oil and rice. The campaign also provides direct financial assistance to some families.<\/p>\n

The party also provides a weekly package of various vegetables and fruits to the families, delivered to their homes.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhatever fruits the rich man eats, the poor man eats too, without discrimination,\u201d Harakeh said.<\/p>\n

Hezbollah volunteers prepare 2,100 meals a day that include rice, vegetables, salads and sweets and deliver them to the families. They also distribute a weekly allowance of meat \u2013 between three and five kilograms, depending on the size of the family.<\/p>\n

At the end of the month, the volunteers will also distribute clothes \u2013 a tradition of Eid, the festival marking the end of Ramadan.<\/p>\n

Harakeh said that this year district committees have been set up to seek out wealthier individuals in the neighborhoods and convince them to donate to the poorer families. Hezbollah provided seed money to get the project started.<\/p>\n

Harakeh estimates the cost of each of the 2,100 daily meals at about $6. The vegetable and fruit allowances cost $25,000-$30,000 a week, and the meat costs about $5,000 a week.<\/p>\n

The new scheme is intended to build solidarity within the neighborhoods, he said.<\/p>\n

Harakeh said the project\u2019s aim is to show a different facet of\u00a0Islam<\/a>\u00a0\u2013 the essence of which is caring for the needy and serving people, something obscured by rising extremism.<\/p>\n

Among the details of the aid program he adds stories and sayings from an earlier age. One is of the Prophet Mohammad\u2019s nephew hearing an adage that someone who strives to serve his brother is as one who worshipped God for 7,000 years. Another is by Sayyeda Zainab, the Prophet\u2019s daughter, who said the good of one\u2019s neighbor precedes that of one\u2019s own home.<\/p>\n

Harakeh said the kitchen project is intended to build \u201cpositive accumulations\u201d among society \u2013 as a foil to extremism.<\/p>\n

\u201cHelping the poor is different from the image being presented of Islam, which is harming Islam,\u201d he said, adding that politics and sectarianism have tinged all of society.<\/p>\n

\u201cSomeone who lives in Holland or Germany sees Islam like this,\u201d he said, referring to rising extremism. \u201cTheir media also purposely shows that this is Islam, even though they know this isn\u2019t Islam.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYou have to be a partner in creating a positive culture in society,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

Source: Daily Star<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

BEIRUT:\u00a0Mustafa Khuraizat\u00a0and his fellow volunteers from Hezbollah\u2019s reserves hurried to fold cardboard boxes. Nearby, another volunteer lit the fire under the cooking stoves. \u201cWhen we are asked to go to the field of jihad, we go,\u201d Khuraizat said. \u201cAnd when we are asked to serve people, we serve the people.\u201d The 18-year-old volunteer helps cook …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":9850,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"iawp_total_views":3,"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[1064,455,65,1062,24,349,1063,163],"class_list":["post-9849","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","","category-culture","tag-feed","tag-food","tag-hezbollah","tag-kitchen","tag-lebanon-2","tag-middle-east-2","tag-poor","tag-ticker"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wilayah.info\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9849","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wilayah.info\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wilayah.info\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wilayah.info\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wilayah.info\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9849"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/wilayah.info\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9849\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9851,"href":"https:\/\/wilayah.info\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9849\/revisions\/9851"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wilayah.info\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9850"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wilayah.info\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9849"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wilayah.info\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9849"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wilayah.info\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9849"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}