Twitter Brought Fatik Al-Rodaini and Dr. R.S. Karim together, friends who had either experienced or seen poverty first hand to discuss about the situation in Yemen, the most impoverished country in the Middle East with 90% of their food being imported.
With a single intent and single goal, an idea was concieved. An idea to somehow go around the current Blockade on Yemen and help people who are displaced by war. With that idea the #20ForYemen project was started on Twitter.
Our name: Mona has a story of its own, Mona is the name of the lady who donated the very first $1000 for us to begin our first delivery of food to IDP’s (Internally displaced persons) Mona’s generosity and spirit of humanity was infectious, she exuded of positivity and compassion. This was the point when we decided we were going to name our organization Mona because she exemplifies everything that is good about this world.
Armed with relentless passion and the ability to focus on helping others Mona started operations.
The Project Spirit
The basic idea was to collect funds and send them to Fatik in Yemen who in turn sources and buys food locally and distributes it with the help of a volunteer team.
This is the only way to beat the complete air and naval blockade which is currently in place.
This idea has proven to be successful and we have so far managed to feed over 3000 Internally Displaced Families. However much more needs to be done.
What has been done so far?
In as little as 10 days Twitter responded and we raised $4200 enough to feed almost 150 families for a month. The food has been distributed. (See pictures in gallery) Between then and now we have already distributed food to over 3000 Internally displaced (IDP) families.
In August of 2015, DR. Karim presented the idea to Khalsa Aid A small UK charity with a BIG heart. Seeing the prior successes Mona had achieved, Khalsa Aid immediately agreed to contribute full funding to the project and the result was a resounding success, in collaboration we were able to feed hundreds of families (see pictures in gallery).
However the demand far exceeds the supply, Major charities fail to operate because of the blockade, and we are just creative enough to be able to find a way around it. 100% of the funding goes to food and medicine for the Internally displaced people (IDP). We depend on donations, Crowdfunding and custom designed Tee Shirt sales.
Update: Mona just completed a critical aid mission in the governorate of Al Hodeidah on September 22, 2015. We were able to distribute monthly food supplies to 100’s of families within the port city itself and all the surrounding districts. Due to funding restrictions we are only able to do so much.
During our mission have been able to witness the destruction and malnutrition at levels unseen before.
We are hopeful that with the support of our domors, we will be able to visit Al Hodeidah again for a similar mission as there are thousands of families still desperate for help.
Update: 17/10/2015 Mona Relief has just finished a Khalsa Aid funded mission distributing critical food aid to Internally Displaced People (IDP) families in Sana’a. The displaced families were from Sa’ada, Taiz, Hajjah, Aden, Amran and Marib. The mission started on14/10/2015 and that very evening we had to halt distribution because of heavy intense non-stop bombing on the 15th and 16th but we reumed on the 17th and completed the mission, feeding 100’s of IDP families successfully.
Update: 12/11/2015 Mona Relief has just completed a mission to distribute winter cloting to 2000+ IDP’s in the Sana’a area, we have also distributed much needed medicines to IDP families who have pre existing conditions and are not able to afford their maintenance drugs. We will soon start to distribute winter clothing to over 100,000+ IDP’s in all areas of northen Yemen where winters can be harsh.