NEWS – Hasene provides emergency aid in 16 countries
In several regions of Pakistan and Mongolia, the Hasene Association has provided emergency humanitarian aid with coal and winter clothing for residents affected by extreme cold.
“We were afraid of the risk of frost”
The helpers were also finding it difficult to work under these conditions, as Yavuz Erat, Hasene helper from the region of Southern Bavaria, reports. “We found it difficult to walk from our car to the houses,” said Erat. As of 5 a.m., he and his team had started distributing coal in the Mongolian villages, which were difficult to reach due to the hardly accessible roads, icy sections of the route and puddles. During a flat tire, the frost also became dangerous for the helpers: “To be honest, I was afraid of the freezing cold. We put on blankets and waited in the car. We had a puncture three times on the trip, ”recalls Yavuz Erat. Despite the adverse circumstances, the effort was also worthwhile in his view.
More help is urgently needed
Winter in Mongolia begins in September and does not end until April. Yavuz Erat reports that this is particularly hard on the needy and families who would have to live in tents and makeshift barracks. The most important source of income, livestock farming, is increasingly restricted, among other things, by the lack of rain. The per capita income is just $ 90-100. Coal aid can only temporarily alleviate the need. “With our coal aid, people are only supplied with heating material for a month or two,” says Yavuz Erat. According to him, the aid must therefore continue.
1,000 orphans received humanitarian aid in the form of winter clothing
Hasene also provided emergency winter help in Pakistan. According to coordinator Bayram Ali Kukal, more than a thousand orphans in three regions were provided with warm clothing, including winter jackets, hats, gloves and scarves.
Ali Kukal particularly remembers an experience in the city of Charsadda: “As soon as the children received the gift bags, they were opened quickly and the winter clothes were unpacked and put on in them. A four year old child came up to us and spoke to us. I assumed the child didn’t like the jacket. The other children quickly translated what it said. The child wanted us to put his jacket on. I then put the jacket on the child and hugged him. In this moment of joy the freezing cold passed and I felt a feeling of warmth. The children had an indescribably great joy. May Allah be happy with all donors who have made such joy possible for these children. ”