Breaking bread for iftar, young volunteers serve residents at elderly care home

AMMAN — Young volunteers on Sunday paid a visit to an elderly care home in Amman and served the fast-breaking iftar meal to residents as part of a “broader” charity campaign during the holy month of Ramadan.

Spreading the happiness in the White Beds Nursing Home, 70 volunteers from a group named “Jordan Volunteers” visited 130 elderly people to serve and share iftar with them.

Jordan Volunteers was established in 2009 by the group’s co-founder and president Motasem Masalmeh and aims to help those in need  and to improve volunteering skills among young people to increase volunteers’ efficiency in serving the community, Malek Al Oleimat, the public relations manager at Jordan Volunteers, told The Jordan Times.

Enhancing continuity in volunteering and making it a part of the volunteer’s life is also one of the group’s goals, he said, adding the team’s role in the community comes through organising other initiatives, like “Tardak La Gheirak”, which means “donate your food parcel to others”, which aims to distribute food parcels to families in need during Ramadan and throughout the year.

Other initiatives include “Teaching an Orphan”, “I Belong, I Volunteer”, “Their House is Our House” and the “Doctors of Jordan”, Oleimat explained.

According to a statement from the organisers, the team serves elderly people, people with special needs, cancer patients, orphans and others in need.

Ola Haddad, a 27-year-old volunteer who recently joined the group as an event organiser, said in a phone interview: “I started volunteering with the group in 2010,” explaining that Sunday’s visit to the elderly care home was not the group’s first, adding that she feels like the elderly miss the volunteers and vice versa.

Raniem Al Odat, a 19-year-old volunteer, said that the visit to the elderly care home was her second event with the Jordan Volunteers. 

“Doing this really shapes and improves your personality. The people there seemed so happy when we visited them; some of them actually told me to come and visit them again soon”, she said.