- Over 27 000 people in the Western Cape have benefited from the Mustadafin Foundation’s Eid al-Adha cooking event.
- Volunteers gathered at the foundation’s Bridgetown headquarters to prepare and distribute 70 pots of food to those in need, emphasizing the importance of community involvement.
- This initiative, in its 38th year, highlights the foundation’s commitment to providing meals and fostering community spirit during religious and other significant holidays.
More than 27 000 people across the Western Cape have benefited from the Mustadafin Foundation’s night of cooking in honour of Eid al-Adha.
Starting on the evening of Sunday 16 June at their Bridgetown head-offices, volunteers assisted in cooking 70 pots of food on-site to be distributed to locals in need on Eid day, Monday 17 June.
With many using community feeding as their means of Zakat al-Fitr or Fitrana (a charitable donation of food guided by Muslim custom), this is not common for the second Eid, says Ghairunisa Johnstone Cassiem, director of Mustadafin Foundation.
“Over the last 38 years, we realised that a lot of people cook for the first Eid, but no one cooks for the second Eid, because everybody is busy with the sacrificial meat, the qurban programmes,” says Johnstone Cassiem.
The organisation cooks and distributes meals daily to 27 000 people across the province. For the night of cooking, additional pots of food were cooked in Delft and Khayelitsha as part of the project.
All regions
This long-standing initiative, taking place over the last 38 years, benefits people of all religions, says Johnstone Cassiem, adding they hope to continue with the Night of Cooking project on additional days throughout the year, including other religious holidays such as Christmas eve for Christmas day.
“We feed those who are in need and the Night of Cooking is also to create the spirit of community in a sense that we bring people together,” she says.
“There is a collaboration, the donors and the community who actually come together to make that pot of food. So it’s not like your normal every day where our staff and the cooks cook. This is where a special meal gets created and we get the community involved to assist with the Night of Cooking.”
This year, Johnstone Cassiem says the community involvement surpassed previous years, with more volunteers than pots. The camaraderie, sense of community and giving is part of the expansion of this mass cooking event, she continues.
“We had more men than women and maybe it was because it was Father’s Day and it was Youth Day, but it was beautiful that you actually saw the beautiful spiritual aspect.
“All our funding comes from the community, particularly the Muslim community, but this time it was not just that, it was just a whole collaboration of different people coming together and making a difference to those who wouldn’t have had a meal on Eid day.”
