In the month of giving, a Jeddah-based volunteer group has been working together to spread joy and happiness among the less fortunate people in the city. For the sixth year now, a group of young volunteers organized a relief campaign to distribute iftar meals to about 400 people in south Jeddah’s Karantina district.
This annual tradition started in 2010 and every year volunteers head to the same area, where they distribute iftar and hand out candies and toys in Eid.
According to Lina Jamjoom, Karantina is home to a large number of people who lack both jobs and education. “The houses are small and the occupants are many. This area is in need of attention from people who want to give back to the community with more than just Iftar Sayem,” she said. “We have been visiting this neighborhood for six years now and we have developed a strong bond with them. It is funny that as soon as we arrive, they sing a song to celebrate our coming and this makes us feel warm inside,” she said.
This year, around 725 meals have been distributed every day to people living in Karantina, according to Hala Mazrooa, one of the organizers. “Around 25 young volunteers have been attending the Iftar Sayem campaign this Ramadan. The food is distributed to lines of men, women and children. It takes us just 20 to 30 minutes to distribute all meals because we have enough volunteers who know exactly how to deal with this campaign,” she said. “We have a new station this year, we added a photo booth for people to take funny and silly photos of themselves and their friends, they can of course keep the photos. We use polaroid cameras to print instant photos aside from all the photo booth equipment and accessories,” she added.
The distributed meals are of two kinds. “For young children and teenagers we distribute around 200 chicken sandwiches along with juice boxes. Once they receive their meals, they head straight to the playground for some fun and games,” said Nouf Bannan, a Karantina volunteer. “Older men and women receive 300 hot meals consisting of rice, a whole chicken, laban, water and dates, all nicely put together in protective aluminum boxes and plastic bags,” she added.
Karantina children connected with the volunteers on an entirely different level. “I was a little afraid that the young ones would not accept us and play with us but when we started the games, there was a great turnout and the fun started. I remember when we started packing on the first day to leave the location, the children were very disappointed and wanted to spend more time playing with us,” said Ghaida Sindi. “This made us think of other types of games that we could teach them to play together without us being there. The children’s enthusiasm made me even more excited to think out of the box and come up with new ideas and games to teach them and play with them,” she added.
According to Sindi, playing with the children strengthened the relationship between the volunteers and the people living in the neighborhood. It solidified the trust between them and made the connection stronger.
Orphanages get a special treat during the holy month as volunteers pay a special visit to young children with no families. The orphans are too young to meet with volunteers on the street so the volunteers visit them to distribute groceries and special gifts. “We also make sure to pass by them to celebrate the occasion by distributing Eid clothes, toys and candies among the young ones,” said Ayah Shata.
“Volunteering with Iftar Sayem for the past six years has been a great experience. There is a strong sense of community between the volunteers and the people in Karantina. It always feels great to be able to help, even in the smallest way possible,” said Basma Amin, one of the volunteers.
Karantina people already know how these volunteers work. As soon as the volunteers arrive, they find the people standing in three different lines of men, women and children, exactly how they have been taught to.
Aside from Iftar Sayem, the volunteers started another project where they hire men from Karantina for a development and restoration project in the same area. “This project is one of the most exciting projects we have. When we visited a number of houses and saw that they needed to be fixed, we decided to come up with a solution. What better than to provide young men with full-time jobs and salaries to fix their own neighborhood and their neighbors’ houses,” said Jamjoom. “All we did is provide them with the needed equipment and documentation they need to complete the project. With that we helped young men with income generating jobs and the neighborhood with safer houses,” she added.
The volunteers took photos of the houses before and after restoration for documentation reasons. “We are looking to prepare a presentation for companies interested in corporate social responsibility projects,” said Jamjoom.
— Rima.almukhtar@arabnews.com
Jeddawis spread smiles this Ramadan
Jeddawis spread smiles this Ramadan
Couples tie the knot during a festival on an Amsterdam ring road
- “It just seemed like super fun idea,” Lisowska said
- “It’s a nice party we didn’t have to organize,” said Iozzelli
AMSTERDAM: Securing a coveted slot to exchange wedding rings on Amsterdam’s usually traffic-choked ring road seemed like a good omen for Zuzanna Lisowska and Yuri Iozzelli’s future life together.
“It just seemed like super fun idea,” Lisowska said. “And, you know, statistics were on our side. There were 400 couples who wanted to do it, so we feel really lucky to have been chosen.”
Friends and total strangers cheered and clapped as they told each other “I do!” as part of a day-long festival on parts of the A10 highway that circles the Dutch capital closed to traffic for the day.
“It’s a nice party we didn’t have to organize,” said Iozzelli.
Their only regret was not being able to bring their pet rabbit. “It was too hot,” Lisowska said after exchanging rings with Iozzelli.
The city that is known for partying said that some 600,000 people tried to get access to the ring road festival last month when more than 200,000 free tickets were made available.
Curious city folk, from parents pushing strollers to students and grandparents, stopped to watch the weddings and enjoyed the one-off opportunity to see the road without the usual cacophony of cars.
Among them was communications student Kyra Smit.
“It’s really fun because it’s a once-in-a-lifetime thing,” she said. “It’s so fun that you can say to people, wow, I’m married on the rings, so I really like this.”
The day was packed with events from music performances to readings, meetups and a fun run, shortened because of the heat. Organizers even placed a temporary forest of more than 8,000 trees on the blacktop.
The municipality laid on extra water taps and places where revellers could slap on sun block as temperatures soared to 30 degrees Celsius (86F) and upwards on the road surface.
The city’s official birthday is Oct. 27, reflecting the first time a variant of its name was used in an official document, and is staging celebratory events in the year leading up to that date. The festival on the ring road is the biggest so far and gave Amsterdam residents a new view of their ring road.
“It’s quite strange because normally you drive here and now you’re walking, so that’s a totally different situation,” said Marjolein de Bruijne, who works close to the A10.
Indians stretch, breathe and balance to mark International Day of Yoga
- Yoga is one of India’s most successful cultural exports after Bollywood
NEW DELHI: Tens of thousands of people across India stretched in public parks and on sandy beaches Saturday to mark the 11th International Day of Yoga.
The mass yoga sessions were held in many Indian states, where crowds attempted various poses and practiced breathing exercises. Indian military personnel also performed yoga in the icy heights of Siachen Glacier in the Himalayas and on naval ships anchored in the Bay of Bengal.
Similar sessions were planned in countries like Malaysia and Indonesia.
“I feel that yoga keeps us spiritually fit, mentally fit and helps us manage stress. That’s why I feel that people should take out at least 30 minutes every day for yoga to keep themselves fit,” said Rajiv Ranjan, who participated in an event in the Indian capital of New Delhi.
Yoga is one of India’s most successful cultural exports after Bollywood. It has also been enlisted for diplomacy under Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who has harnessed it for cultural soft power as the country takes on a larger role in world affairs.
Modi persuaded the UN to designate the annual International Day of Yoga in 2014. The theme this year was “Yoga for One Earth, One Health.”
Modi performed yoga among a seaside crowd in the southern city of Visakhapatnam city, and said “Yoga leads us on a journey toward oneness with world.” Amid a checkerboard of yoga mats covering the beach, Modi took his spot on a mat and did breathing exercises, backbends and other poses.
“Let this Yoga Day mark the beginning of Yoga for humanity 2.0, where inner peace becomes global policy,” he said.
As Modi has pushed yoga, ministers, government officials and Indian military personnel have gone on social media to show themselves folding in different poses.
In capital New Delhi, scores of people from all walks of life and age groups gathered at the sprawling Lodhi Gardens, following an instructor on stage.
“Yoga for me is like balancing between inner world and outer world,” said Siddharth Maheshwari, a startup manager who joined the event.
Netherlands returns 119 looted artifacts known as Benin Bronzes to Nigeria
ABUJA, Nigeria: The Netherlands on Thursday returned 119 artifacts looted from Nigeria, including human and animal figures, plaques, royal regalia and a bell.
The artifacts, known as the Benin Bronzes and mostly housed in a museum in the city of Leiden, were looted in the late 19th century by British soldiers.
In recent years, museums across Europe and North America have moved to address ownership disputes over artifacts looted during the colonial era. They were returned at the request of Nigeria’s National Commission for Museums and Monuments.
During the handover ceremony in Edo State, Oba Ewuare II, the monarch and custodian of Benin culture, described the return of the artifacts as a “divine intervention.” The Benin Bronzes were returned at the request of Nigeria’s National Commission for Museums and Monuments.
The restitution is a testament to the power of prayer and determination, the monarch said.
The Dutch government is committed to returning artifacts that do not belong to the country, said Marieke Van Bommel, director of the Wereld Museum.
Olugbile Holloway, the commission’s director, said the return of 119 artifacts marks the largest single repatriation to date and that his organization is working hard to recover more items looted during colonial times.
Nigeria formally requested the return of hundreds of objects from museums around the world in 2022. Some 72 objects were returned from a London museum that year while 31 were returned from a museum in Rhode Island.
The Benin Bronzes were stolen in 1897 when British forces under the command of Sir Henry Rawson sacked the Benin kingdom and forced Ovonramwen Nogbaisi, the monarch at the time, into a six-month exile. Benin is located in modern-day southern Nigeria.
Napoleon’s iconic bicorne hat and personal treasures expected to fetch millions in Paris
PARIS: After Hollywood’s “Napoleon” exposed the legendary emperor to a new generation, over 100 relics — which shaped empires, broke hearts and spawned centuries of fascination — are on display in Paris ahead of what experts call one of the most important Napoleonic auctions ever staged.
His battered military hat. A sleeve from his red velvet coat. Even the divorce papers that ended one of history’s most tormented romances — with Josephine, the empress who haunted him to the end.
Two centuries after his downfall, Napoleon remains both revered and controversial in France — but above all, unavoidable. Polls have shown that many admire his vision and achievements, while others condemn his wars and authoritarian rule. Nearly all agree his legacy still shapes the nation.
“These are not just museum pieces. They’re fragments of a life that changed history,” said Louis-Xavier Joseph, Sotheby’s head of European furniture, who helped assemble the trove. “You can literally hold a piece of Napoleon’s world in your hand.”
From battlefields to boudoirs
The auction — aiming to make in excess of 7 million euros — is a biography in objects. The centerpiece is Napoleon’s iconic bicorne hat, the black felt chapeau he wore in battle — with wings parallel to his shoulders — so soldiers and enemies could spot him instantly through the gunpowder haze.
“Put a bicorne on a table, and people think of Napoleon immediately,” Joseph said. “It’s like the laurel crown of Julius Caesar.”
The hat is estimated to sell for at least over half a million dollars.
For all the pageantry — throne, swords, the Grand Eagle of the Legion of Honor — the auction’s true power comes from its intimacy. It includes the handwritten codicil of Napoleon’s final will, composed in paranoia and illness on Saint Helena.
There is the heartbreakingly personal: the red portfolio that once contained his divorce decree from Josephine, the religious marriage certificate that formalized their love and a dressing table designed for the empress. Her famed mirror reflects the ambition and tragedy of their alliance.
“Napoleon was a great lover; his letters that he wrote are full of fervor, of love, of passion,” Joseph said. “It was also a man who paid attention to his image. Maybe one of the first to be so careful of his image, both public and private.”
A new generation of exposure
The auction’s timing is cinematic. The 2023 biopic grossed over $220 million worldwide and reanimated Napoleon’s myth for a TikTok generation hungry for stories of ambition, downfall and doomed romance.
The auction preview is open to the public, running through June 24, with the auction set for June 25.
Not far from the Arc de Triomphe monument dedicated to the general’s victories, Djamal Oussedik, 22, shrugged: “Everyone grows up with Napoleon, for better or worse. Some people admire him, others blame him for everything. But to see his hat and his bed, you remember he was a real man, not just a legend.”
“You can’t escape him, even if you wanted to. He’s part of being French,” said teacher Laure Mallet, 51.
History as spectacle
The exhibition is a spectacle crafted by celebrity designer Jean-Charles de Castelbajac, famed for dressing Lady Gaga and Pope John Paul II.
“I wanted to electrify history,” Castelbajac said. “This isn’t a mausoleum, it’s a pop culture installation. Today’s collectors buy a Napoleon artifact the way they’d buy a guitar from Jimi Hendrix. They want a cabinet of curiosities.”
He’s filled the show with fog, hypnotic music and immersive rooms. One is inspired by the camouflage colors of Fontainebleau. Another is anchored by Napoleon’s legendary folding bed. “I create the fog in the entrance of the Sotheby’s building because the elements of nature were an accomplice to Napoleon’s strategy,” the designer said.
Castelbajac, who said his ancestor fought in Napoleon’s Russian campaign, brought a personal touch. “I covered the emperor’s bed in original canvas. You can feel he was just alone, facing all he had built. There’s a ghostly presence.”
He even created something Napoleon only dreamed of. “Napoleon always wanted a green flag instead of the blue, white, red tricolore of the revolution,” he said, smiling. “He never got one. So I made it for Sotheby’s.”
Trump shows off giant new flagpoles, boasts of them as ‘the largest you’ll ever see’
- At 27 meters tall, the flagpoles are nowhere close to the world’s tallest, including one from Jeddah
WASHINGTON: US President Donald Trump took time out Wednesday from deliberating on whether to bomb Iran to unveil two huge new flagpoles that he claimed are among the best in the world.
Trump, 79, saluted as a giant Stars and Stripes flag was raised on one of the 88-foot (27-meter) poles in a brief ceremony on the South Lawn of the White House.
The billionaire real estate tycoon, who built his career on brash displays of wealth, said he was personally paying for each of the $50,000 poles.
And he could not resist some nationalistic hyperbole about the size and quality of the new additions.
“This is about the largest you’ll ever see,” Trump told reporters. “These are the best poles anywhere in the country — in the world actually.”eeeeee
The poles are, however, 12 feet shorter than originally advertised by the White House, which said when it announced Trump’s plan in April that they would be 100 feet tall.
They are also nowhere close to the world's tallest flagpoles, including Saudi Arabia's (561-feet (171-meter) high Jeddah Flagpole, which was completed in September 2014, this was previously the world record holder for several years.
Trump also said the pole on the South Lawn — the famed expanse of grass with a vista that leads to the Jefferson Memorial — was “very far” from where Marine One lands, when asked if it could cause any issues for the helicopter.
WORLD'S TALLEST FLAGPOLES
1. Egypt's Cairo flagpole (New Administrative Capital, Cairo: 201.952 meters (662.57 feet) - completed in December 2021.
2. Azerbaijan's National Flag Square flagpole 2 (Baku, Azerbaijan): 191 meters (626.64 feet) unveiled in August 2024.
3. Saint Petersburg Flagpoles (Saint Petersburg, Russia): 175 meters (574 feet) - unveiled in June 2023.
4. Jeddah Flagpole (King Abdullah Square, Jeddah): 171 meters (561 feet) - completed in September 2014.
5. Dushanbe Flagpole (Dushanbe, Tajikistan): 165 meters (541 feet) - completed in May 2011. 6. Kijong-dong Flagpole (Kijong-dong, North Korea): 160 meters (525 feet) - Built in 1982, this flagpole held the record for the tallest for many years.
( Source: Google Gemini compilation)
The second flagpole was being installed on the North Lawn at the front of the White House.
The giant flags are the latest part of Trump’s sweeping makeover of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue since he returned to power in January.
The Republican is paving over the famed Rose Garden and has blitzed the Oval Office with gaudy gold decorations. He also has plans to build a new ballroom.
For the flag-raising ceremony, Trump was accompanied by a group including Charles Kushner, the new US ambassador to France and father of Trump’s son-in-law.
Kushner, a real estate executive who spent time in federal prison after pleading guilty in 2004 to tax evasion, among other crimes, was pardoned by Trump in 2020, near the end of his first term.
Trump’s eldest daughter Ivanka in 2009, served as the president’s adviser during his first term, notably on conflict in the Middle East. The Middle East overshadowed the debut of Trump’s new flagpoles, with the president facing a series of questions from reporters about whether the United States would join Israel’s airstrikes on Iran.
“I may do it, I may not do it,” Trump said when asked.
