Two graduates enlisted the helps of local restaurants to deliver more than 70 meals to homeless shelters this weekend to celebrate the Islamic holiday Eid.
The University of Brighton graduates decided to convince restaurants to donate their surplus food and containers and deliver them to homeless shelters on Saturday, 22 April.
Sami Ahmed, 23, who also works part time at Curry Leaf Café, approached friend Lavinia Sgarabotto, 24, to help deliver meals after becoming concerned with homelessness in the city.
The pair hoped their project, Do They Know It’s Eid, would celebrate the community spirit of overlapping religious holidays of Ramadan, Passover and Easter.
Sami said: “Leaving home when I was 18, you kind of miss things like Eid and being around your family.
“Because Eid is just a random day, it’s very hard in the corporate world now to get that one day off to go see your family.
“I was thinking about especially when you’re from an ethnic background growing up in Britain, one of the things most families did was make a load of pakoras and send it over to the neighbour.
“At eight years old there’s nothing more cringy than going to a neighbour with pakoras but it was that kind of community spirit that I miss.
“I thought Asian restaurants are probably going to be the most sympathetic because one of the pillars of Islam is Zakat, which is charity.
“We realised that homeless shelters around Brighton don’t actually have a lot of access to food.
“On Saturday, we woke up really early. We had collected all the food on the Friday, stored it, and we just went about putting some into meals together making our own food as well to send with it.
“When we gave out the last batch of food and thought if we can do this, with two or three weeks of organisation, where do we think this can go?
“If we can make this into bigger, maybe bimonthly or quarterly thing that would be quite cool.
The two students delivered the meals to Glennwood Lodge, Brighton and Hove Foyer and William Coulier house.
Curry Leaf Café, Malika Restaurant, Kitgum, Lavash, Brighton Curry, Cardamom and Bismillah Spice of Life all donated food or packaging to the pair, who labelled the food with allergens and also cooked food themselves.
Their project even caught the attention of GMB host and Citizen Khan actor, Adil Ray on Instagram, who reposted their call for donations.
The pair have both just finished their MA in Globalisation, and are involved with volunteer work around the city, with Sami volunteering with Trust for Developing Communities (TDC).
Sami said: “We both live in Brighton, I’ve been here five years, it’s my home. If you want to make a difference, I suppose you’ve got to start somewhere.
“From the point of view of students, anyone who moves to Brighton has a really glossy version of what Brighton is.
“People don’t really see how let down working class people or people out in Whitehawk or Moulsecoomb are, most people don’t see that environment.
“I do feel like there is more that can be done and students can get involved to make it a bit easier and make it a bit better, that should be something we’re pushing forward.”
You can find the project on Instagram @dotheyknoitseid
