DUBAI // Tens of thousands of Syrian refugees who have fled to Lebanon will soon be receiving aid from the Emirates.
The UAE Red Crescent said it was working with the Lebanese Red Cross on a plan to provide refugees with food, medicine and shelter.
"We are setting up an operational plan," Ahmed Al Mazroui, chairman of the UAE Red Crescent board, said on the sidelines of an annual meeting of Arab Red Crescent and Red Cross societies in Dubai yesterday.
"They [the Lebanese Red Cross] are working on setting up an operations plan with the International Committee of the Red Cross and UN organisations. "We have visited Lebanon and are working in coordination with the UN High Commissioner for Refugees."
Mr Al Mazroui said the two organisations had signed a memorandum of understanding last week.
He said there were more than 11,000 registered refugees in Lebanon but estimated the number of unregistered, displaced Syrians at more than 35,000.
The UAE Red Crescent is already working in Jordan, assisting more than 8,000 Syrian nationals with food, medicines and shelter.
Authorities at the three-day meeting, which began yesterday at the Moevenpick Hotel and Apartments Bur Dubai, will discuss humanitarian crises with more than 20 of the region's charitable societies.
Mr Al Mazroui said better coordination and increased reliance on technology was needed among humanitarian organisations.
"We need to do more than what we have done; more in terms of working together, in terms of exchange of information with each other," he said. "It is not happening on a high scale. Sometimes there is a problem when you don't coordinate with the national society."
Relief leaders said the situations in Somalia and Yemen were also at the top of their agendas.
"Somalia is unfortunately a complete crisis. They have the internal war besides the drought," said Abdullah Al Hazaa, secretary general of the Arab Red Crescent and Red Cross Organisation in Saudi Arabia.
Mr Al Hazaa said the aid agencies were working towards setting up a channel of communications, improving IT and strengthening their information database. He also said nations had to do more to respond to problems.
"What we are providing now is, unfortunately, not enough," Mr Hazaa said. "We need governments to give more support for moving of relief teams."
pkannan@thenational.ae
It's up to you to go green
Nils El Accad, chief executive and owner of Organic Foods and Café, says going green is about “lifestyle and attitude” rather than a “money change”; people need to plan ahead to fill water bottles in advance and take their own bags to the supermarket, he says.
“People always want someone else to do the work; it doesn’t work like that,” he adds. “The first step: you have to consciously make that decision and change.”
When he gets a takeaway, says Mr El Accad, he takes his own glass jars instead of accepting disposable aluminium containers, paper napkins and plastic tubs, cutlery and bags from restaurants.
He also plants his own crops and herbs at home and at the Sheikh Zayed store, from basil and rosemary to beans, squashes and papayas. “If you’re going to water anything, better it be tomatoes and cucumbers, something edible, than grass,” he says.
“All this throwaway plastic - cups, bottles, forks - has to go first,” says Mr El Accad, who has banned all disposable straws, whether plastic or even paper, from the café chain.
One of the latest changes he has implemented at his stores is to offer refills of liquid laundry detergent, to save plastic. The two brands Organic Foods stocks, Organic Larder and Sonnett, are both “triple-certified - you could eat the product”.
The Organic Larder detergent will soon be delivered in 200-litre metal oil drums before being decanted into 20-litre containers in-store.
Customers can refill their bottles at least 30 times before they start to degrade, he says. Organic Larder costs Dh35.75 for one litre and Dh62 for 2.75 litres and refills will cost 15 to 20 per cent less, Mr El Accad says.
But while there are savings to be had, going green tends to come with upfront costs and extra work and planning. Are we ready to refill bottles rather than throw them away? “You have to change,” says Mr El Accad. “I can only make it available.”
Company Profile
Name: Thndr
Started: 2019
Co-founders: Ahmad Hammouda and Seif Amr
Sector: FinTech
Headquarters: Egypt
UAE base: Hub71, Abu Dhabi
Current number of staff: More than 150
Funds raised: $22 million
Company%20Profile
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Israel Palestine on Swedish TV 1958-1989
Director: Goran Hugo Olsson
Rating: 5/5
BORDERLANDS
Starring: Cate Blanchett, Kevin Hart, Jamie Lee Curtis
Director: Eli Roth
Rating: 0/5
The%20specs
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Leaderboard
63 - Mike Lorenzo-Vera (FRA)
64 - Rory McIlroy (NIR)
66 - Jon Rahm (ESP)
67 - Tom Lewis (ENG), Tommy Fleetwood (ENG)
68 - Rafael Cabrera-Bello (ESP), Marcus Kinhult (SWE)
69 - Justin Rose (ENG), Thomas Detry (BEL), Francesco Molinari (ITA), Danny Willett (ENG), Li Haotong (CHN), Matthias Schwab (AUT)
Company%20Profile
%3Cp%3E%3Cstrong%3EName%3A%20%3C%2Fstrong%3EDirect%20Debit%20System%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3EStarted%3A%3C%2Fstrong%3E%20Sept%202017%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3EBased%3A%3C%2Fstrong%3E%20UAE%20with%20a%20subsidiary%20in%20the%20UK%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3EIndustry%3A%3C%2Fstrong%3E%20FinTech%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3EFunding%3A%3C%2Fstrong%3E%20Undisclosed%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3EInvestors%3A%3C%2Fstrong%3E%20Elaine%20Jones%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3ENumber%20of%20employees%3A%3C%2Fstrong%3E%208%3Cbr%3E%3C%2Fp%3E%0A
Blackpink World Tour [Born Pink] In Cinemas
Starring: Rose, Jisoo, Jennie, Lisa
Directors: Min Geun, Oh Yoon-Dong
Rating: 3/5