Exclusive for the Daily Outlook

The news of "kids dying of cold in refugee camps in Kabul" hit the media and shook hearts; maybe not of many people, but at least of a few. It was around 12 pm in a cold noon of February. Looking for the group of Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) that I had heard were living near the Kabul Museum, we drove around Darul Aman Palace for almost 10 minutes. Finally I saw an old yellow building that had been partially damaged by bombings in early 1990s. Outside the building there were old and shaky tents, around which I saw some women and kids.

I entered the area and a couple of teenaged boys followed me, "are you here to make a list?" they were asking with a hope. Some aid organizations reach these masses once in a while and make lists of them to distribute basic food items.

I said no, because I wanted to avoid a crowd around myself. "I will just have a look at your tents" I replied. My hands in my pockets, the wind was blowing off my scarf and with all my warm clothing I was shivering as though the cold was entering my blood through my skin.

I stood in front of the tents for a few moments and I was surrounded with women and children of all ages, a very old and feeble man and a few teenaged boys. I entered some of their tents, where I could hardly see old pieces of flooring, a Sandali, and few old quilts and mattresses in dark.

A little kid who had just started walking was crying outside a tent without pajamas. I touched his rough and cold cheeks and started wondering how he can still live in this cold weather not even with enough clothing to cover him. I looked around and found that they were living with not enough food to feed themselves, not enough clothing to warm themselves, and even no water to wash as often as they needed to.

Wondering how and why they were living under those tents covered by snow, I asked them why didn't they go back to their villages in their hometowns. They said after returning from Pakistan, they came to reside there. There were no homes, no work and nothing to eat in their villages.

What would they do if they had gone there. Every question I asked them sounded so meaningless because the answer to everything was quite clear. In the villages, there are no jobs for the unskilled and no development opportunities for them.

The capital is more promising as people can find some labor work on daily wages, although the pool of unskilled labor is so huge that they cannot be lucky enough to find work every day. Daily wages can hardly suffice to fill their stomachs, but no saving so that they could think about housing or anything else.

Driving back home, I was thinking where were those millions of dollars that enter into Afghanistan by the name of aid, while so many people still live without food and shelter in the capital. Where is development? Is it just in the form of tall buildings that are built to celebrate wedding ceremonies? Don't people who live luxury lives and spend thousands of dollars, ever think what is going on in their neighborhood?

I then thought if every rich family sacrifices by spending on one long weekend in Dubai and spend those funds on one of these families instead, it will help them be warm and have food for several months. Or, if a middle class family sacrifices eating out for one night, and buy food for a poor instead, it will suffice that family for a month.

With this in mind, I sat behind my computer and started to spread the message around my friends and colleagues. With the level of trust that I had on them and they on me, they very willingly and generously joined hands to raise funds among their social groups. Within a week, we ended up collecting more than 10,000 dollars which was enough to support tens of poor families. With those, we bought 80 packages of basic food items and 160 blankets.

A group of us identified very vulnerable families who were living in slums and under the tents. In a cold day of winter, we distributed packages of food and blankets with some cash to these families. Everyone who lent a helping hand in the group, feels so proud to be part of a major humanitarian cause.

It is a great feeling to realize that you are feeding someone else while you are enjoying your meal at home with your kids, that someone else's children are warm this winter, while we cover our children to be warm at night, that, with all the comforts that we are blessed with, we are doing our part to give some comfort to those who are less fortunate.
If everyone stops for a moment to think about those who are less privileged and contribute a tiny bit, it will bring a major change in our community.