A plea to our friends: donate your diaspora dollars and share the blessings of Eid for orphans in Gaza

As you celebrate the blessings of Eid, honour your mama this mother’s day, and welcome the blossom of spring, please spare a thought and a dollar for the orphans of Gaza.

May the blessings of Eid embrace you. May peace be upon you and your loved ones today and always. May you find strength in family and camaraderie.

And above all, may compassion and community spirit surround and seduce all beings, so that othering and ethnic cleansing become only stories in history books that people read aghast at the capacity of our species to do such harm.

To continue our work towards this goal, we need your diaspora dollars.

The region we cherish is in crisis. Crises. They are the result of calculated plans cooked up in a kitchen consumed by hatred. We must band together, actively and with humility and a focus not on our own convenience and comfort but on the pursuit of kinship among and between all people and peoples.

The International Day to Combat Islamophobia is still visible in our rear-view mirror, while tomorrow marks the International Day for the Elimination of Racial Hatred. The former is a new day, declared by the United Nations in 2022. The latter was declared in 1960 to mark the massacre of peaceful protestors to apartheid by police in South Africa.

While international days amplify issues adversely affecting our planet and the people who live off it for 24 hours a year, Taawon’s commitment to freedom for Palestine and Palestinians is ceaseless. It is a priceless heirloom passed down generations of uprooted people who know that no matter how much wealth they accumulate, their core will crave the nutrients scorched by settlers and the salty sea breeze denied even to those who remain on the land we love.

And so, every now and then, you hear from us asking you to share part of your wealth so that we can enrich and extend the lives of Palestinians resisting the erasure of the land we love. We gratefully receive one-off donations, regular contributions, and bequeathals, and direct them to those in need across our soul country. Taawon has since 1983 invested over a billion dollars in Palestine and Palestinians. We have only been able to do so with your generous support. Collaborative by name, collaborative by nature.

Donations received during Ramadan and throughout this Eid weekend will be spent on sustaining and expanding NOOR, our Gaza orphan care programme. The children who have lost their mother will not be giving her cards or flowers tomorrow. The start of spring, 21 March, also marks mother’s day in the Arabic speaking region. As the flowers bloom in lands where the soil remains fertile and sacred, I implore you to offer them the compassion of a mother and give from the heart.

with hope and gratitude,
Reem Maghribi