What does bread mean for Syrian people?
Bread is the staple food of the Syrian diet. On each table in Syria, usually none is without bread. If a piece of discarded bread is found lying on the floor in Syria, it is picked up, kissed and the finder touches their eyes with it. This was seen very globally when the famous footballer Mesut Ozil did the exact same when a piece of bread was thrown onto the field, thereby highlighting the regard Muslim culture has for bread!
Stale bread is turned into desserts and not a crumb goes to waste. Imagine living a life so pure and simple that bread was the majority of what you eat with your family. However, it is now unaffordable due to the unstable economy as the result of war which has occupied the last decade; as well as the Turkiye-Syria earthquake which impacted the Syrian economy significantly hindering people’s ability to rebuild their lives.
So what happens to Syrian refugee families after the teams delivering humanitarian aid for Ramadan go home? Do they know when their next meal will arrive?
Revive sustains 2 bread factories. One, on the outskirts of Aleppo – Halab and another in North-West Syria prioritising isolated and rural poor communities. The latter is the Ramadan bread factory, which begins each year in Ramadan and then continues for the year ahead. Wheat is purchased at the beginning of the year of operation in order to combat the rising wheat costs and stabilise the project against the unstable economy for the coming year. Since the project began, the cost of bread has increased by 300% (and rising still). Without it, the communities we feed through the efforts of the bread factories starve.
By sustaining the bread factories, we:
- Provide jobs for 10 refugees per bread factory.
- Provide bread for 200,000 starving Syrian refugee’s per year.
- Bring an entire isolated communities out of starvation.
- Recycle your donations again and again to feed the refugees of Syria and ensure a constant provision of food, relieving countless families from hunger.
"Whomsoever feeds a believer till he is satisfied, Allah will enter him in to Paradise from a Gate which is reserved only for him." - Tabarani
In a verse of the Qur’an Allah said Ibrahim عليه السلام is like a nation.
So imagine the reward for feeding 200,000 starving believers for an entire year!
The bread factories renew year-on-year due to rising wheat costs and storage facilities we can purchase wheat and resources for 1 year ahead at a time. This is the reason the bread factories require funds to support them each year. But what could be more rewarding than donating your Sadaqah and Zakat to a project which feeds and entire nation of believers week-in-week-out for an entire year?
