Thiruvananthapuram: A Keralite nurse in the UAE is one of the major major helping hand for the people who are struck there either due to job loss, health issues, or any other calamity which one may face in a foreign land.
Hajara Valiyakath, who hails from Kerala’s Thrissur, has been in the UAE for the past 16 years, working as a nurse in a private hospital in Dubai. She began getting interested in social work and helping out the downtrodden began after she found people admitted in the hospital who required aid and support.
She has opened a social organisation, named “Jeeva Karunya Hastham” or ‘a helping hand with compassion’.
Talking to IANS, Valiyakath said: “Earlier my thought was that I could support and help people once I had good savings but then I found that it was not like that and had to intervene in social life as I was daily witnessing the trauma and helplessness faced by many people who are admitted in the hospital where I am working.”
She said that once she had to intervene in the issue of her room mate who had to suddenly go back to Kerala after her father fell ill. However on reaching the airport, she found that her company owner had given a complaint to the immigration authorities that she was “absconding” from work.
The nurse had to give her own passport as security to let her room mate go back to India and she found that the sponsor had raised such an issue due to some misdeeds of the recruiting agency.
“Jeeva Karunya Hastham” was formed in 2019 along with a few friends to support those who are struck in the UAE and since then she had intervened to help many expatriates suffering from difficulties.
During the devastating floods in Kerala, Valiyakath and her team had intervened and sent a good quantity of essential commodities to the state by meeting individuals and organisations who were interested in extending their support.
“I am really happy on seeing the eyes of the people who are helped out. During Covid days, I had the traumatic experience of many people falling dead in the hospital where I was working, with no relatives or friends to support them. It was a tough time and I even thought that my mental balance was being affected. The helplessness in the eyes of the patients was too much to face and I had the opportunity to support and extend a helping hand to many,” she said.
During the holy month of Ramzan which is currently ongoing, Valiyakath is into providing food and other facilities to the needy people in the UAE and she does this with a smile.
“I don’t keep any count of people who have approached me for help and support but one thing I am sure, I will go to any extent to help people who are in need. In a foreign country, people require to help each other to move ahead and I and my team are trying our best to support those who require our help,” she told IANS.
Working as a staff nurse in a private hospital in UAE, she juggles her time with philanthropic activities and her professional assignments and is happy in supporting and helping the people. She said that she gets several calls a day from Kerala and also in the UAE for support to the dear and nears who got struck in the Gulf country due to various reasons and said that she and her team tries their best to provide help to them.
She has received several recognitions from philanthropic organisations in the UAE and in Kerala for the service she had rendered to the people who require her support.
–IANS
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