‘We want to help:’ Regina Dawah Association gives back to community

After finishing a shift at a Regina hospital and seeing homeless people sleeping underneath the heating vent outside, Abd Alfatah Alras knew he wanted to help.

“This is something that we as Muslims have as a part of our belief,” Alras said. “We want to take responsibility for the blessings we have, whether it’s time, whether it’s money (or) whether it’s volunteering opportunities.

“We want to take our opportunities and make them a reality.”

The Regina Dawah Association stood outside Carmichael Outreach on Saturday handing out 100 care packages designed to provide warmth, as well as 100 meals.

The group teamed up with Muslim Aid Saskatchewan, which made up of many students from the University of Regina Muslim Students Association.

The Regina Dawah Association teamed up with Muslim Aid Saskatchewan to help supply the homeless with care packages on Saturday. (Nicole Garn/980 CJME)

Alras, a first-year medical student, said he’s seeing more people struggling with inflation rates and high rent costs. He said he once spoke to a homeless man who worked as a trucker, but who struggled to find the next opportunity and ended up on the streets.

“We want to help them, and we think we have an obligation to help them,” said Alras. “We want to help whenever we can, wherever we can.”

Alras has seen international students who have ended up being homeless because of high costs, and said it’s often a situation out of their control.

Alras said sometimes people don’t have to look at their own opportunity; sometimes they can make their own opportunity.

“It’s not necessarily that you need a lot of power and a lot of positions, or a high position, or a lot of money to make an impact,” he said. “This was something I was able to make just by someone reaching out to my friends (and) my classmates.”

The group’s next course of action is a clothing drive. Members will send clothes to the Middle East for people struggling during the war.

The Carmichael Outreach warming shelter is now in operation.

— With files from 980 CJME’s Nicole Garn