Donations delivered

A heartfelt ‘thank you’ has been sent to GulfWeekly readers who contributed to our joint festive campaign with DHL Express to collect blankets and socks for Syrian refugee families living in camps after fleeing their conflict-torn homeland.

Bureaucratic obstacles and dreadful weather conditions failed to thwart our Wrap-up for Christmas Appeal 2015 goods from finally reaching their destination.

Non-governmental organisation (NGO) assistants of The Zhin Organisation of Refugee Services have distributed more than 250 blankets donated to the cause and socks have also been handed out to children attending schools to ensure they keep warm over the winter months.

Alaa Tahseen, DHL’s contact in the Kourkosk camp for Syrian refugees in Erbil, the capital of the Iraqi Kurdistan region, reported: “We have completed distribution of the blankets and we sincerely thank the people of Bahrain for their generosity.”

This came as huge relief to the world’s leading express delivery and logistics company which has its regional headquarters in Bahrain.

“We were unable to make the deliveries on Christmas Eve due to security pass issues to the camp and then the new delivery planned for New Year’s Eve was cancelled due to very heavy rain!” explained Aurora Nolasco, country human resources manager.

The DHL team also visited an orphanage for Syrian refugee children in neighbouring Kourkosk to distribute pens, pencils and crayons.

St Christopher’s Cathedral in Manama, The Multinational School, The British School of Bahrain and Bahrain Rugby Football Club in Janabiya acted as collection points for donations during our initiative last November, the first Christmas appeal ever launched by a newspaper in the Gulf region.

Editor Stan Szecowka said: “It was the season of goodwill and we hoped, together with our campaign partners, to make a real difference. It was so heartening to see the images sent to us from one of the camps.”

Phil Armatage, DHL Express country manager Iraq and Afghanistan, said: “Our aim was to be able to deliver warmth and support and perhaps some hope that things will get better.”

This time last year, it was reported how the misery of millions of refugees who have fled war-torn Syria to live in tent cities across neighbouring countries got a lot worse, after bad weather paralysed the region with freezing temperatures, strong winds and a massive snow storm.

Millions fleeing Syria’s four-year-old civil war have created an international refugee crisis, and many more are now about to face a battle of survival against the elements.