Prince Khaled Al-Faisal, Emir of Makkah, in a ceremony Wednesday evening honoring volunteers who brought aid to victims of the disastrous floods which hit the city last November, announced that he has asked the mayor of the city to build a large park in a new district in eastern Jeddah and to name it Jeddah Youth. “Everybody who participated in the aid campaign will have his\her name written in a visible place in this park,” said the Prince. “With people like you, one should not be afraid of the future of this country. You make me proud,” he told the volunteers. As Prince Khaled made his announcement, the more than 5,000 enthusiastic young people assembled for the honoring ceremony in the Prince Abdullah Al-Faisal Stadium shook the stands with their rapturous applause and chants. Jeddah Municipality had planned to name the new park after Prince Khaled, but he said that he insisted that the plan be changed to honor “those courageous boys and girls”. In a speech on behalf of the families of the floods victims, Wa'el Abu Taleb, resident of a flood-hit neighborhood, said that everybody was heartened when they learned of the decisions of the Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques after the crisis and that those decisions were of great comfort to the martyrs' families. “We didn't have to wait long until aid came from everybody and everywhere, especially from individual volunteers from among Jeddah residents who demonstrated their fraternity,” said Abu Taleb. Huda Hammad, a volunteer, spoke before Prince Khaled on behalf of the volunteers and explained that they were only able to distribute around 200 baskets of food on the first day, that this number jumped to 3,500 baskets on the second day. “As our work became more organized, we we able to go faster, and we delivered more than 200,000 food baskets in one month,” she said. The honoring ceremony included a short documentary which started with dramatic film clips showing people being washed away by the flood waters. The show also documented the quick response of both the public and private sectors and the efforts of the volunteers to collect and pack food items for the affected families. The celebration also included the screening of a music video with lyrics written especially for Jeddah after the floods. The video clip included historical black and white scenes of pilgrims and traders coming to the Kingdom from different parts of the world. The song talked of the love of Jeddah that its people have regardless of their nationalities. Another short documentary which was screened was entitled ‘Jeddah is the meeting point of all cultures', which featured interviews with Yemenis, Burmese, Pakistanis, Senegalese and Canadians who volunteered to participate in the flood relief campaign. They all expressed their love for the city, which they said they loved like their homeland. It is noteworthy that the volunteer efforts also included disabled people who provided what ever help they could. Mohammad Abdul Malik, who is disabled and is the founder of the Willingness Maker Center for the Disabled, said that he could not stay home when he saw the awful damage caused by the floods and decided to participate in the aid campaigns with his disabled colleagues from the Center. Twelve-year-old Majed was happy to help packing food baskets though he was sitting in a wheelchair. According to his mother, the boy was almost brain dead after suffering from meningitis when he was eight. “I dedicated myself to his treatment until he was able to see and speak again,” said Eman Ahmad, Majed's mother. “Now he is eager to participate in charitable and volunteer work,” she said.
