Nearly 25,000 donate to Shaheen relief campaign in Oman

Muscat: Nearly 25,000 people have donated money to help people impacted by cyclone Shaheen.
Figures on the donate.om portal show that OMR678,742 had been collected from 24,655 donors, who had contributed to the Shaheen Help Campaign, until 31 October.

Donations towards Shaheen assistance gathered the second-highest number of contributions on the site, with more people choosing to contribute to the Zakah campaign that collected a little more than OMR900,000, as of 31 October.
Other key charitable efforts people contributed to via donate.om – the country’s national charity donation website – include care for orphans, international aid, and family welfare.

Donations of money aside, hundreds of people in Oman have also contributed clothes, household items, food, school supplies, and other essentials to help their brethren in the areas impacted by Shaheen.

“We have been organising field visits to check up on families and individuals – irrespective of whether they are nationals or expatriates – to inquire about their needs and provide them with what they require, for which we are working with the local Social Development Directorate,” said Sawsan bint Saud Al Yaqoubi, the vice chairperson of the Social Development Committee of the Wali’s Office in Wilayat Khaboura, which was badly affected by the cyclone.

“When people were placed in shelters, we made sure they were kept comfortable in their temporary accommodation,” she added. “We have also been supervising the distribution of supplies, and assigned two people for each area to facilitate the process of sharing supplies to those affected.”

She added that her committee’s responsibility is to supervise the work of the charity organisations deployed in affected areas after Shaheen, while also overseeing the supply of aid to the required people. >A5

“Donations have been received from various charitable organisations in Oman, which we are handing over to affected people,” she added.

People who wish to donate money to fund the relief and reconstruction efforts post-Shaheen are welcome to do so, through the donate.om portal.

A number of national charities, including the Oman Charitable Organisation, Dar Al Atta’a, Nidaa Charity, and Al Rahma Association for Motherhood and Children, can be donated to via the website.

Local charities, which are also an integral part of organising relief efforts, can also be funded through donate.om. These include the charity teams in Ibri, Suwaiq, Nizwa, Samail, Liwa, Ghiras, Bidiyah, Saham, and Mussanah.

To donate, please visit www.donate.om – the site is accessible in both English and Arabic – and select the “Shaheen Help Campaign” option. This will take the user to a page on which people can select any of the 16 charitable initiatives to which they can make a donation.

Set up jointly by the Ministry of Transport, Communications and Information Technology, and the Ministry of Social Development, donate.om was brought online on 13 January 2019 for donors to make charitable contributions online.

The Online Donations Portal was developed with the vision to promote charity for valuable social causes in the Sultanate of Oman, by providing an electronic gateway to facilitate payment of donations to charitable organisations supported by the Ministry of Social Development such as the Oman Charitable Organisation, the Association for the Welfare of the Handicapped, Al Noor Association for the Blind, Association for Early Intervention for Children with Special Needs, and others.

This portal supports humanitarian efforts for charity by eliminating the donor’s problems of time and distance using technology. This electronic channel, connecting donors and beneficiaries, fully processes charitable payments electronically.