Qatar Living Volunteer Group

Members of the Qatar Living Volunteer Group have conducted their second distribution campaign, supplying a large number of labourers with water and other supplies to make it through the summer.
Following the collection and sharing of items last weekend, the group decided to host another collection on Thursday evening before distributing the donations to some of the neediest residents of Doha.
The group leader, known only as “Speed”, explained that the campaign had gone extremely well and that simply being outside during the daylight hours gave all the volunteers an idea of the extreme temperatures and conditions in which the labourers work.

Volunteers aid stranded labourers
By Sarmad Qazi

The volunteer group of community website qatarliving.com came together to support a group of stranded Indian labourers yesterday.
Prompted by a Gulf Times report last week, the Qatar Living Volunteer Group (QLVG), led by its head who goes by the name of ‘Speed’, delivered fresh vegetables and fruits along with breakfast to 17 workers abandoned by their company since November.
A daughter of a Qatari farm-owner and an active member of QLVG ‘Pitstop’ donated produce from her farm, while the breakfast was contributed by qatarliving.com’s Pakistan Group head ‘Xray’ who said the gesture would help bring Indians and Pakistanis together.
“The alliance between the media and members of the civic society is a natural one. We will continue to help the neediest in Qatar,” Speed said at the labourers’ makeshift residence yesterday.
QLVG has over 350 members and the number is growing each day, the officials said.
The masons, from the north Indian states of Uttar Pradesh, Punjab and Rajasthan, were told to stop working after the company ostensibly lost its existing contracts on November 30. They were kicked out of the camp in Madinat Khalifa in March by the landlord and were brought to the company’s six-room office in a villa on E-Ring in the dead of night by the company’s sole remaining official, a mandoob. The new location has no electricity and water is delivered through tankers which charge QR100 for 1,000 litres.
They have not been paid their monthly salaries of QR1,200 since August, prompting them to first seek redress through the Labour Department with the help of the Indian embassy. They then got mired in legal wrangling at the primary court.
“Around 14 of us filed for case withdrawal, after arbitration by the embassy, whereby the mandoob said we’d be given a return ticket and a one-time QR1,000. Since then we have been given fresh dates by the court every time we go there,” a worker from Delhi said yesterday.
On April 22, a batch of nine workers was given a new date of April 26, while seven of them have a different date. Three workers did not withdraw the case, in the hope of getting their arrears.
The Indian embassy also has been supporting the workers with consular-related help, in addition to providing food and money.
http://www.gulf-time...