Sharjah: American University of Sharjah (AUS) students brightened the lives of an underprivileged family in Sharjah by renovating their home from scratch.
The house was unveiled yesterday by the students, who are part of the university's community service club, in the presence of vice-chancellor of student affairs, Dr Moza Al Shehhi, director of Student Development and Organisations, Munketh Taha, and representatives from the Sharjah Social Empowerment Foundation (SSEF).
The house, located in the low-income neighbourhood of Shabkha, Sharjah, is surrounded by dilapidated villas alongside dusty, unpaved roads.
The SSEF said the head of the Emirati family had died leaving the mother and four children in need of assistance.
Through a partnership between SSEF and AUS, about 70 students volunteered to do menial work including brick-laying, tiling, painting and decorative work over a one-month period. This is the second renovation project the community service club has undertaken.
Learning experience
"At the university we encourage our students to participate in social work and to help people in need through our community service programmes and this is one of those programmes. They renovated the house from zero to what you see now," said Dr Moza.
By using students who did all the labour themselves, costs to renovate the home were greatly reduced she said.
Taha said students also benefited as their skills were enhanced and they learned the importance of social responsibility outside the classroom and in a hands-on way.
"Students volunteer to see that this is the real life out there and not what they see on TV — we have to go out of the campus to show them how [underprivileged] some people are."
Volunteer and business student Rihab Badsha said: "We did everything from laying bricks to making the floor level to painting. I think this is also a great experience because we got to experience how workers from construction companies do their jobs."
Badsha said groups of students were bussed in after classes from the AUS campus to the house to work on the house for about two hours every day.
Teamwork
"The best part is that we worked together as a group and it was a very humanising experience, it brought us down to earth," said Mohammad Mudassir Idris, who is also a business student at AUS. Idris and Badsha said the community service club was a popular club and showed students' commitment to helping in their community.
"It definitely shatters the stereotype that students in the UAE are spoiled and don't care about anything. We are trying to break that stereotype."
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