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For the NTU Muslim Society (NTUMS)’s Project Yusra, the Ehsan Food Hamper distribution that was carried out on 11th June was their first collaboration with Global Ehsan Relief.
“Our target audience is the underprivileged community in Singapore. This collaboration with Global Ehsan Relief (GER) is one of our projects because GER is one of the organisations in Singapore that helps the underprivileged. Hence, Yusra’s target really aligns with GER as well,” shares Farhanah, the advisor of Project Yusra.
Together with 25 members of Project Yusra, we distributed 100 Food Aid Packs consisting of rice, flour, instant noodles, oil, milk, biscuits and other food essentials to six blocks in Boon Lay.
“For today’s event, we helped with the packing of the items, distributing them to families. We got to talk to the families and interact with them, get to know more about their lives.
The Head of Project Yusra, Ariff added: “It was really nice to meet the beneficiaries and go to their homes. It was a whole lot of experiences and also a variety of people that we met. So it could be quite emotional as well because some of the stories were quite heart-moving and heart-wrenching. And it really puts our lives in perspective, such as how blessed we are in our lives.”
The members of Project Yusra also shared how the short chat with the beneficiaries had left an impact on them.
“They constantly reminded us to take good care of our health and take good care of our parents. One important thing that we realised was that even though they are not exactly well to do, they are always very willing to help their neighbours out. Some of the houses that are adjacent to each other, they will actively go and visit other houses and they would help their neighbours to cook, clean up their house, just to ease the burden of their own neighbours - which is something that we can all learn from,” Ariff shared.
Among some of the beneficiaries that we met shared with us the following situations.
“My parents could not come to visit me due to COVID-19, so I am battling cancer on my own. I’m fighting against cancer, for my children. Thank you for remembering me.”
“I’m okay but my husband is always getting in and out of the hospital since he had three fingers amputated. He can no longer walk. It’s because of diabetes. He’s actually an active person, a cyclist, a very good cyclist. But things happened, nothing I can say about it.”
"Verily, with every hardship comes ease. With hardship, comes ease." (94:5-6)
“Yusra’s motto is, with hardship comes ease. It is one of the many verses of the Quran and this particular verse is from Surah Al-Insyirah. It ties in to what we do in Yusra. We try to provide some form of ease to people who are facing hardship and in a sense, it doesn’t have to be community, but it can be in any form at all. Let’s say you are feeling overwhelmed or stressed, we want to provide everyone around us with positive vibes and just to feel good about ourselves. Specifically for today, we want to provide ease to our beneficiaries in terms of their groceries.”
Farhanah had this to share with us when we asked why volunteering is important:
“It reminds us how our lifestyles are very different and we should help those who are underprivileged, because you never know when we might need help on our end. So you won’t know what it’s like to be in their shoes. And it’s always good to lend a helping hand when you can. So volunteering is one of the ways to do that. And it’s always great to work with an organisation that believes in helping the beneficiaries.”
Did you know that the average Singaporean family spends approximately $200 on groceries every month? This could also vary due to the health situation of its family members. For families with members suffering from lifelong illnesses like diabetes or heart problems, the struggle to put food on the table after covering medical bills is immense.
You can still contribute to ease the financial constraints of struggling families by providing an Ehsan Food Hamper for just $50.
At the same time, find out more about what Project Yusra does as well!