By CAM LUCADOU-WELLS
Sharing food is special ingredient that brings people together…
DOVETON’S Afghan mosque has found the way to break bread with its neighbours.
As member Rokhan Akbar found, there’s also no better way to draw a smile than giving away delicious food, even from the burliest of residents.
‘It breaks the barriers,” he said.
As part of handing out 500 meals to the community on 15 July, Mr Akbar and mosque members delivered hot traditional Afghan meals to 50 neighbours’ doors.
The inaugural food drive marked Ramadan as a “month of generosity”, Mr Akbar said.
He hesitated before just one door – one surrounded by warning signs such as ‘Beware of the Resident’.
“I just said to myself I’m doing a good cause. God was with me.”
The door was answered by a large, muscly man with prominent tattoos and hair on his shoulders.
Mr Akbar said he explained that his nearby mosque was giving out food, that it was Ramadan – a time to be kind to our neighbours.
“There was a big smile,” Mr Akbar said.
“He said thank you, happy Ramadan.”
It convinced Mr Akbar that giving food or any gift with good intentions changes people’s minds.
The traditional kabuli palao rice with chicken, lamb, spinach and sweets had been freshly cooked in the Photinia Street mosque’s kitchen that afternoon.
A further 130 meals were collected by Transit Soup Kitchen and 300 were served to homeless people, refugees and asylum seekers who arrived at the mosque’s inaugural food drive.
Last year the mosque hosted the funeral of Numan Haider, the teenager who was shot dead after stabbing two police officers at Endeavour Hills Police Station.
At the food drive, local police including the region’s Superintendent Russell Barrett were on hand to help with deliveries.
Supt Barrett said he was humbled by the show of “generosity of spirit”.
“It is moving to see groups within the community reaching out to those who are less fortunate them themselves, regardless of faith or cultural background.
“I am constantly amazed at the generosity that is offered and the manner in which everyone, irrespective of who they are or where they come from, is welcomed.
“This often makes me reflect on what a great community I have the privilege to work amongst.”
He said the region’s community had “a richness and energy that I have never experienced before in many years of community policing”.
There is further good news for the mosque’s food-loving neighbours – there are further food drives in the pipeline, including hosting the community at a big cook-up barbecue at its mosque.
Of the food drive, Mr Akbar said: “It was so powerful, such a fantastic feeling.
“We should have done it ages ago.”
