Kitchener-Waterloo

Waterloo volunteers to package 30K culturally appropriate meals for families in Syria

A University of Waterloo event this week will see hundreds of volunteers put together emergency food kits for families in Syria who have been displaced by the war.

A charity group is putting together over 30,000 culturally appropriate meals for Syrian families

Each kit will provide a nutritious and culturally appropriate meal for one Syrian family. (Amanda Grant/CBC)

An event at the University of Waterloo this week will see hundreds of volunteers put together emergency food kits for families in Syria who have been displaced by the war.

Today and tomorrow, disaster relief charity GlobalMedic will be stationed at the university's Federation Hall, packaging over 30,000 culturally appropriate meals for these families.

"We went and talked to Syrian refugees that are living in Canada that work as chefs, and we asked them to design a meal that Syrians would like to eat," Rahul Singh, executive director of GlobalMedic told CBC Kitchener-Waterloo.

The group is also enlisting the help of over 600 youth from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints' youth leadership conference, also taking place at the university.

Each kit will provide a nutritious meal for one Syrian family, the group says, and will be delivered directly to families in the war zone. The families are also provided a water-purification kit.

Once the meals are packed up, they are sent by sea to Turkey, and then driven by road to the different refugee camps housing the families that need them.