CAIRO: While watching the bombing of Gaza on the news left citizens around the Arab world frustrated, it nonetheless prompted many youngsters to take the initiative and help Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.
Many university students in Egypt, whether part of NGOs or individually, started collecting donations and supplies, such as food, medicine and blankets, with the hope of sending them to Gaza.
AUCians for Gaza is a campaign launched by the American University in Cairo (AUC) students to collect donations in cooperation with the Arab Doctors’ Union which will then send the supplies to Gaza.
“AUC is a community that calls for proactive individuals that are to lead this country one day. We are therefore accountable to make AUC faculty, staff, and students aware that they can be effective populace and that sympathy without action is not enough, the AUCians for Gaza team wrote on the homepage of their Facebook group.
They added that the reason for their support to Gaza was strictly humanitarian and has nothing to do with politics.
“When I decided to do something to help the Palestinians, the first thing that came to my mind was the suffering they experienced and what they felt like and what would I have needed if I were in their shoes, Rana Khazbak, a campaign coordinator, told Daily News Egypt.
“Our target is to collect LE 1 million by the end of January, and send every LE 50,000 we collect to Gaza. added Khazbak.
Students who are not part of any community service clubs or organized student activities have also tried to help, even if on their own.
In Cairo and Ain Shams Universities, students took initiative to collect donations and organize campaigns in support of Gaza.
“The politics between the countries should not stop the individuals from advocating human rights, a political science student at Cairo University told Daily News Egypt.
“We are students from different universities and we hardly know each other but we all united for one cause; saving innocent humans, a medical student added.
While most of these students relied on proxy NGOs to carry their donations, or their equivalent in supplies, to Gaza, others want to try their hand at the border.
Preferring to remain anonymous for security reasons, some students told Daily News Egypt that to make sure that the supplies they collected reach Gaza, they will be taking them to the Rafah border themselves.
TV reports from the Palestinian Territories have been listing the most needed supplies in Gaza: these include glass panels for windows to shelter residents from cold nights, baby milk for infants, medical supplies and basic foods.
The Egyptian National Blood Bank has also called on people to donate blood to cater to Gaza’s wounded.
