HelpingHandsUAE

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Helping Hands UAE

Roger & I would like to WELCOME you to our site, and give you a brief about what we do and why we continue to reach out to the most underprivileged, disrespected, ignored and neglected people in this society.

We are first and foremost humanitarians, and Helpinghandsuae is a secular charitable project which has evolved from a very cold October night in 2006 when we were invited to visit a group of Pilipino men in a camp. They had not been paid for 5 months. We already knew they needed food, and we had to find out what type of food they needed to sustain their strength and what they enjoyed. Armed with the food parcels, we went to meet them. When we arrived they looked like 'deer caught in headlights', they came out to us wide-eyed and fearful. They thought they were in trouble! Their expressions soon turned to faces that were alight with happiness, once they knew we were there to give them a helping hand. We knew we were going to be instrumental in helping them break their cycle of debt, because they were running up bills at their local grocery store. When their salaries began to trickle through, the grocery store owner was first in line to be paid, leaving the men's families in their homeland still waiting for the essential money to be sent home for them to survive.

We know that for every man and woman we meet, there are usually extended families for them to support in their homelands.

We feel blessed that we were in a position to begin the work by ourselves, but within a short space of time we realized the enormity of the problems and needs of the construction workers. We could not meet the needs of so many needy people by ourselves. I took the initiative to let the expatriate community know via www.expatwoman.com what we were doing and the help we needed to carry on.

The response was amazing, everyone wanted to give that all important 'helping hand' That is how the name was born, Roger said, with so many people coming forward to give us a helping hand, let's keep it simple and call the project Helpinghandsuae. I agreed and although it is unsophisticated it describes exactly what we do. We give a helping hand and there are no strings attached.

It does not matter to us where the person is from, what his religion or beliefs are. If he/she is needy and we have it, we give it.

We are talking about the foreign migrant workers who are entirely responsible for building this spectacular place we know as it is today.
Dubai.

2 months or so after we began supplying food and clothing to the men in camps, were told about housemaids who run away from their sponsors because they were unable to stand any longer the abusive and inhumane situations they found themselves in. 'Madam' treats them like slaves and 'Sir' rapes them as do some of the sons of the household.

The run-away girls take shelter in their Consulate. When they run, they often leave behind all of their personal possessions: this illustrates to us the depth of their desperation. Do you know of a woman who would dash off anywhere without grabbing her purse first? Quite a few girls try to commit suicide & sadly some do succeed.

We still take the girls huge amounts of clothing, shoes, handbags, toiletries, women's personal hygiene items etc. Everything is donated by the caring women of Dubai.

Roger & I reach out and make a difference in the lives of the neediest people in this society. We target the lowest paid migrant workers, the most exploited, the most disrespected, the most underprivileged: the invisible, the disposable and neglected members of society. We touch the lives of human beings some people do not know even exist.

We do it because there is a need and we feel honored that we can help much less fortunate people than ourselves. We are grateful that there are many people with the same caring hearts who help and support us with amazing loyalty and generosity in giving us all of the material requirements we need. In effect, we are a channel for all of those people here who tell us, Dubai has been good to them, and they have wanted to 'give back' to society, but did not know how to go about it until we came along and enabled them to do just what they have wanted to do: to give back.

People we know and trust come to us with distressing stories of families they know about who are in crisis. Usually the husband has lost his job; occasionally the husband and the wife have both lost their jobs. But still they have to feed their children. We help them out over their crisis, we also tell them we are not a life long support, and as soon as they are back on track we withdraw and let them get on with their lives again.

Roger & I do an assessment of their immediate needs: food, sometimes furniture, bedding/towels or medical treatment and we arrange for the transportation. Afterward, we ask one of our donors, who is willing to do this, to monitor and make sure all is running smoothly with the family. When the emotional stress has subsided we do what we can to assist finding jobs, so that there is an income again. We have recruiters who work with us, and as soon as we can get a CV we get it up on the radar of the recruiters ASAP.
Due to the high rents and school fees many families have had no option but return home, sometimes leaving the husband here on his own. It is such a shame for families to have to be broken up in this manner. It is very stressful and puts a great strain on marriages.

Individuals who are in desperate situations are brought to our attention.
E.g. Last year we took into our care a British gentleman who had lived on the streets in Dubai for 16 months, and he had no family or friends. We took him to Doctor Tasnim Khan MD FAAFP at her APC Clinic in Health Care City.
She works with us tirelessly and never turns us away with whomever we turn up with. She did tests on Harry and was surprised that he was in reasonable condition despite all he had been through while out on the streets. He was very thin and she prescribed food supplements, regular meals and sleep, which was provided for him. She strongly recommended that he should give up smoking. He refused point blank. With help from our wonderful donors, we repatriated Harry on December 15th 2007 sending him off with a suitcase full of clothes etc, a laptop, and some money in his pocket. Sadly, I was informed by the British Embassy on April 16th 2008 Harry had passed on, probably due to a heart attack. Smoking really does KILL!

Elle