Mum and dad no longer need to invent reasons for bare Ramadan dinner table
Favourite meals, no more lies to the children, the chance to continue some traditions from back home … but most importantly the ability to put food on the table. Cash assistance makes Ramadan easier for a refugee family in Turkey.
Ramadan this year brought many blessings for the Al Sayed family. One of them was the family’s ability to put food on the table for the Iftar meals with which they break the day-long fasts.
The Al Sayed family started receiving cash assistance as part of the Emergency Social Safety Net (ESSN) for the first time in September 2018. They arrived in Turkey from the Syrian city of Homs in 2013.
“For years we had to live with a strict meal plan due to a lack of money. What tormented me was not us having to go hungry. It was having to lie to my children about why they couldn’t have their favourite meals,” says 42-year-old father Amar.
One of the most frequent ways the parents explained the lack of iftar favourites was that mum and dad just didn’t like them any more. It was a necessary ruse to shield the children from the truth about their precarious situation.
“I really like Fatayer [ a type of baked bread with Feta cheese, popular with Syrians] which my mother didn’t like in the past but now she makes it for us,” says Leen. “She also makes Fetteh [Syrian flatbread with a layer of chickpeas topped with hummus, lemon juice and nuts] sometimes. And that is my favorite food.”
Leen, 8, and Ziad, 11, have felt a palpable improvement in their quality of life — during this Ramadan in particular.
“Before I found it very difficult to pass the time while fasting during Ramadan. Our TV was broken so i couldn’t even watch TV. Now it is fixed,” says Ziad.
The ESSN is a European Union-funded cash assistance program that helps more than 1.7 million of the most vulnerable refugees in Turkey.
The majority of the recipients of this cash assistance are Syrians under temporary protection in Turkey, like the Al Sayed family.
The ESSN is jointly implemented by the World Food Programme and the Turkish Red Crescent, with vital support from the Turkish government. Families need to meet certain criteria to be eligible for cash assistance.
The ESSN programme directly impacts refugee families, restoring some normalcy and stability to their shattered lives.
For example, the number of assistance-receiving parents withdrawing their children from school has dropped by more than 50 percent. In addition, there has been a 45 percent drop in the number of parents who say they have to eat less themselves in order to ensure their children eat enough.
One side-effect of the EU-funded cash assistance is that it helps to relieve the strain put on host communities in Turkey and boosts the local economy. The ESSN has injected over 750 million euros into the Turkish economy so far.
The cash assistance also means the most vulnerable families can maintain a few of their traditions from back home — especially during certain times such as Ramadan.
“Back home, iftars were large extended family affairs. That is impossible now. But at least this year we can put some food on the table and sit down to eat it together as a family,” says Amar.
It is Amar’s wife Manal, 35, who does the cooking in their home and she finds it much more of a pleasure now. She never had problems finding the ingredients for Syrian dishes. It was simply that buying them was usually beyond their means.
Some of the meals they associate with their hometown, like Sendwanet [a rice and meat sausage] and Kibbeh [fried meatballs] remain unaffordable luxuries even now.
But Manal is not complaining. “Thank God this year we have so much to be grateful for. I am grateful for the help we have started receiving,” she says, adding that being able to cook something the children like is important to her.
For the first time in years, the family is experiencing a Ramadan with increased hope.
The children are integrating well in school and society. Leen, who is in the 2nd grade, can’t wait for the summer when her father has promised to build her a basketball board and hoop if she does well in her exams.
“I am going to play a lot of basketball this summer,” she says, sure of acing her exams.
For Amar, the main thing he feels this Ramadan is “tremendous relief” at now having a reliable source of income with which to cover the basics.
“It means no more sleepless nights for me wondering if I can provide a roof over my family`s head the next month,” he says.
