Unemployed Filipina feeds other jobless migrants in Dubai
▻https://apnews.com/626395c9529323e3c5e126b2a9d2c134
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — Feby Dela Peña saw her fellow Filipinos standing in line outside her building in Dubai, waiting for free food. And she was stricken — what if her family, too, had lost their income amid the COVID-19 outbreak? How would she have fed her three children?
Dela Peña is unemployed. “We’re poor, to be honest,” she said. “But it’s not a reason for me not to help, you know?”So the next day, she pulled out the money that was supposed to feed her family of five for a month. When their 11 housemates got wind of her plan — like most migrant workers in Dubai, the family lives in a shared apartment — those who could chipped in as well.She was able to buy about 500 dirhams, or $136, worth of groceries, including 30 frozen chickens and sacks of rice. And she began to cook.
That is how Dela Peña launched the project she calls Ayuda — help, in Filipino, a language heavily influenced by Spanish colonial rule. Each day, she offers 200 free meals to the hungry of Dubai, all of them foreigners, like her own family. Migrants account for 90% of the workforce in the United Arab Emirates. The economic shutdown that came with COVID-19 has hit their communities hard.Despite promises by the Philippine government to help overseas workers with a one-time cash assistance, and despite a nationwide “10 million meals” initiative by the government of the United Arab Emirates to feed the poor, many are struggling to secure their next meal. “Life is so hard and they don’t have anyone to depend on,” said Dela Peña, 34.Dela Peña’s a confident cook who used to sell home-made meals to friends as a way to earn extra money. She said she also has a license in food safety.
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