An article that was in the Qatar Tribune about our amazing H4H trip to Romania during November 4-11:
An amazing experience for Doha team in Romania
TRIBUNE NEWS NETWORK
DOHA REEM al Wohaibi never thought she’d spend her Eid holiday wielding a power screwdriver and pounding nails in the drizzly cold, much less for a community of Roma people (gypsies) in Romania.
But, al Wohaibi found her week in Romania, volunteering for Habitat for Humanity, both empowering and life-changing.
The Qatari woman joined the team of volunteers at the encouragement of her American expatriate friend, Rebeka Fergusson-Lutz, a teacher at the American School of Doha (ASD) and a former US Peace Corps volunteer to Romania.
Fergusson-Lutz had gathered 8 other educators from Doha, primarily from ASD but also from Qatar Academy and the Community College of Qatar, to get their hands dirty by working for Habitat for Humanity for a week.
The plan was to build and renovate houses for a struggling Roma community in Baltesti, a village about an hour northeast of Bucharest, the capital city.
Al Wohaibi, a 1996 graduate of ASD and a long-time financial supporter of charitable organisations, had never before travelled to a developing country to work directly with the local people.
“I have always wanted to do something like this. So, when the opportunity arose and despite my qualms, I accepted my friend’s offer,” she said.
“Going to the Roma community for the first time and witnessing their poor living conditions was definitely a shock for me,” al Wohaibi said. “I had only witnessed this sort of poverty on TV.
Seeing these people in the flesh and the way they lived saddened me. It gave me even more motivation to fulfil the work we were there to do,” she added.
Habitat for Humanity (HfH) is an organisation that works in building homes for the less fortunate around the world. The HfH relies heavily on groups of volunteers, both national and international, to fulfil its mission of providing affordable housing for the working poor.
Al Wohaibi explained, “I didn’t know what to expect but knew that it would entail doing construction work, with a team of people I haven’t met before, in fairly cold conditions and in a foreign country.
It would be a far cry from my comfort zone and that of the majority of Qatari women.
Witnessing the labourers working on projects around my country, I’ve always sympathised with them, being in a different country and away from their families and doing strenuous work daily. I wanted to gain some personal perspective to what these people, who are helping to build my country, are going through. I also saw this challenge as an opportunity to test my strength and myself.” She continued, “The support from my friends and family were amazing. I only had one or two people asking me why I needed to do this and why a woman should do construction work? That type of response, ironically, made me even more determined to go on this trip.” The trip was made possible in large part by the generosity of Doha-based Al-Jaber Engineering, which provided the money for the team’s airfare to and from Bucharest.
“Having the support of Al- Jaber was a huge blessing to us. Being able to go to Romania to serve others was a great way for us to celebrate Eid,” Fergusson-Lutz said.
“We are really grateful that the directors at Al-Jaber put such value on these kinds of charitable projects. I would definitely recommend this to people who would be willing to do something like this and hope this would not be the first and last time for me, abroad or in Qatar. Anyone can make a difference,” al Wohaibi remarked.
