Volunteers put smiles on faces of destitute children at Christmas

BRITISH volunteers in Jordan rolled up their sleeves yesterday to hand out vital aid to refugees who have lost everything.

- BY HANNA GEISSLER in Amman, Jordan PICTURES BY HUMPHREY NEMAR

People queue for hours to get food parcels of cooking oil, rice, sugar and other essentials

On a busy street in Hateen, Al-Rasaifa, they unloaded hundreds of desperately needed food parcels for people who fled conflict in Palestine.

Some of those living in crude concrete homes arrived after the 1948 Palestine war, while others came more recently.

For the children there were toys and treats providing small moments of joy in lives plagued by hardship.

Glaswegian volunteer Zanera Hussain, 32, said: “Their excitement and gratitude put a lot of things into perspective.

“The toys may not have cost much but seeing their smiles was an unforgettable experience.

“It was emotional seeing how little they have and it makes you value what you have more. Seeing some children with no shoes on, it’s hard to imagine how they feel.”

The Express joined six UK volunteers on a deployment with the charity SKT (Spreading Kindness Together) Welfare.

It also distributed 350 food boxes on Christmas Eve at four Syrian refugee camps near the city of Mafraq, where people live in unofficial settlements built on rocky ground.

The camps are home to thousands who escaped the terror inflicted by dictator Bashar Al-Assad before he was deposed last year. Among them is Nawaf Hamdan Almosleh, 40, who shares a tent with wife Model, 33, and their four children aged between nine and 14.