LSH 2903 – Community Service – Learning / Exercise #7
Charity and Volunteering in the UAE - Information and Activities
The UAE is famous for its hospitality and the desire to give one's time and efforts to help other people.
When I travel to other countries and talk to people about my job, the students and the UAE in general, one constant thought I hear repeated is that the UAE is a very hospitable country and its people are very generous. People in the UAE often want to do things to help others, whether it is other UAE Nationals or people from other countries.
Within the UAE we see so many examples of people volunteering and giving to charities to try and help others. People do this out of the simple goodness of their hearts and to try to help other people to have a better life than they have at the moment. An obvious example is TAKATOF which promotes the idea of volunteering within the country.
Just last semester (March 2013) we had a major charity fundraising week when students, staff and teachers of ADMC raised 25,000 Dh to donate to a school in a poor village Cambodia.
The UAE is also very strongly represented in the international field of assisting people from other countries. It may be through the Red Crescent that people donate money, time or skills to try and help others. So much of the time when we hear about various international problems, the UAE is one of the first to step forward and provide assistance.
Activities
Use the following link to access the website of the UAE Red Crescent.
Once you are there, see if you can answer the following questions. This will help you to find out what the organisation does, what some of their projects are and who are the people involved in the organisation.
1. The UAE Red Crescent has contributed to a number of building projects both inside and outside the UAE. Name three projects the UAERC has worked on
a. Expand the camp «Emirati Jordan» at a cost of 17 million dirhams for Syrian refugees.
b. Implementation of health and social programs in the Palestinian territories
c. 300 million dirhams Total new projects for the Palestine Red Crescent Society in the next three years
2. Name at least 4 countries the UAERC has worked in to provide various project assistance
a. Philippine
b. Syria
c. Soudan
d. Somali
3. What was the estimated total cost of projects undertaken in the UAE during 2009?
180,830,333 AED
4. According to the information about the foreign based projects, which group of projects received funding of 8,373,558 Dirhams?
External Projects, various projects in the areas of housing, health, education and other infrastructure at a cost of 8 million 373 thousand and 558 dirhams.
5. According to the information about the Foreign Projects, the UAERC is involved in some very important work. According to the English translation, these are listed below. Try to come up with an easy explanation for each of the terms in the grid.
|
Translation Term
|
My/Our own meaning
|
|
reconstruction
|
Rebuilding
|
|
disasters
|
Ruins, mischance
|
|
crises
|
Disaster
|
|
rehabilitation
|
Recovery
|
|
infrastructure
|
Organization, structure
|
|
devastation
|
Destruction
|
|
public utilities
|
Values, services
|
6. Name three situations which are listed as �natural disasters�.
a. Deluge
b. Storms
c. Earthquake
7. Crescent Volunteers University
What are the three areas of training/qualification that university students could work towards?
a. First aid
b. The international humanitarian law
c. Volunteer work methods
Follow Up
In the previous questions you have looked at a particular charity – the UAE Red Crescent. The questions were designed to get you thinking about some of the activities the charity does as well as thinking about the possibilities of being able to volunteer your own time and efforts towards the benefit of other people.
In the past ADMC has had very strong ties with volunteering and charity organisation both here and abroad.
Here in the UAE we have partnered with the Zayed Higher Organization and the Future Centre, offering opportunities for our students to work with people less privileged than themselves.
During the second semester of 2012-13, ADMC ran a major charity fundraising week when students, staff and teachers of ADMC raised 25,000 Dh to donate to a school in a poor village Cambodia
This semester, we will be working with the Abu Dhabi Science Festival, helping to educate school children and the general public about how exciting science can be.
In groups, you need to select one charity from the UAE and put together a short presentation which you and the rest of your group can present to the whole class.
Think about the questions you were asked earlier on this worksheet as a way of guiding you.
Important: There are no right or wrong answers for such an exercise. This should be a presentation which gives information about the charity you have selected, and that information should be the ideas that you would like other people to know about.
Here are a few suggested websites for you to use. Or, you could always select a different charity to present.
Your presentation should last approx. 8-10 minutes (which should include time for questions).
OVER TO YOU J
