DOHA: RAF, Qatar’s prominent charity, mobilised a huge QR12m ($3.3m) in just two hours during a radio programme for a project to provide shelter and support to Syrian children who have been orphaned in the ongoing unrest in their country and left homeless.
A rich Qatari who didn’t want to be identified donated QR2m for the Turkey-based project for which RAF (Sheikh Thani bin Abdullah Foundation for Humanitarian Services) is raising a total of QR36m ($10m).
Some 41 buildings will be part of a huge residential-cum-farm complex being built by RAF to shelter and support some 1,500 Syrian orphan children.
At least 25 of these buildings will be for male orphans and the remaining 16 for female. There will be schools, health centres and playgrounds, separately for male and female orphans, as also farms to cultivate olive in the huge complex. The farms will be owned by a trust and will generate income.
The complex, called by RAF a city, is being built in Al Rehania city of Turkey, which is some 60km from Syria’s border.
The Qatar Radio programme aired last Saturday evening, during which the donations were mobilised for the project, was for the recital of the verses of the Holy Quran. The highest single donation, after the QR2m made by a Qatari, was for QR1m made by a woman and a man. Several donors gave away QR750,000 each since a building (of the 41 total) is estimated to cost this much.
A guest house will be built in the complex where major donors would be able to stay and meet the orphans they are sponsoring.
RAF’s CEO, Dr Ayed bin Dabsan Al Qahtani, said that the idea to build a “City” for the homeless Syrian orphans was mooted when several RAF delegations visited refugee camps in some cities of Turkey like Kalas and Al Rehania that have refugee camps.
Delegation members who were there to ensure aid disbursal to the refugees saw thousands of Syrian orphan children who were homeless and no one was there to take care of them.
“We came up with the idea that we at RAF should build mass shelter for the Syrian orphan children and so we launched the project, which is the biggest of its kind in the entire Middle East,” Al Qahtani said.
After the idea was mooted extensive studies were conducted to assess the feasibility of the project and it was launched thereafter.
Both citizens and expatriates took active part in the donation campaign.The Peninsula
