UAE Launches ‘United in Giving’ Initiative to Distribute 7 Million Meals During Ramadan

To help those in need during the month of Ramadan, the UAE Food Bank has launched the ‘United in Giving’ initiative, which aims to distribute seven million meals throughout this holy month. This became an initiative to give a chance to many individuals, especially those in vulnerable communities across the UAE.

The initiative encompasses three sub-programs, ‘Blessing Baskets,’ ‘Zabeel Iftar,’ and ‘Surplus of Good.’ The ‘Blessing Baskets’ program sits at the center of the initiative, aiming at distributing over 200,000 meals every day in the form of food parcels, donations, and meals given away from surplus. These meals shall come from within the community, retail stores, food establishments, manufacturers, and private donors. Surplus food, whether cooked or uncooked, will also be collected from hotels and restaurants to redistribute.

The second part of ‘Zabeel Iftar’ focuses on providing Iftar meals for more than 3,000 workers, as blue-collar workers play an important role within the community. The program will ensure that those workers who are working through Ramadan are catered for and provided with meals every day to sustain them after a tiring day of fasting.

Surplus of Good works to raise awareness of sustainable food practices and encourage innovative ways to repurpose surplus food. In collaboration with Fatafeat TV, the UAE Food Bank will develop a series of six episodes, aired in five languages, Arabic, English, Amharic, Indonesian, and Urdu. The six unique episodes will exhibit interesting recipes on how to change so-called surplus food into nutritious meals and engage the public in less waste and more resource use.

Manal bin Yaroof, Head of the Executive Team at the UAE Food Bank, emphasized that the initiative would be implemented closely in cooperation with charitable organizations and public and private partners to ensure that food gets to where it is most needed.

Meanwhile, increasing its strategic partnerships will see the UAE Food Bank enter into 12 new cooperation agreements with government agencies, private sector organizations, and humanitarian institutions. The project assumes great importance in the UAE Food Bank’s 2023-2027 strategic plan that aims to mitigate food wastage and promote social solidarity.

Hind bint Maktoum bin Juma Al Maktoum, wife of Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice President and Prime Minister of the UAE, is patroness to the initiative, which seeks to boost the UAE’s national strategies for sustainable food management while enhancing community involvement in charity activities.