Issue 7
Qataris Abroad
A young patient in Jordan
receives her new toys
We put a lot of
time into sorting
the toys, to ensure
that the toys are
clean and in perfect
condition.
BOX OF
HAPPINESS
Spreading smiles
one child at a time
There is surely no worthier mission than making a child smile.
Box of Happiness does just that. The Qatari charity delivers new
and used toys to underprivileged children in the region and has
recently expanded its work to cover Bangladesh and Jordan.
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Alya Al-Maadheed,
Founder of Box of Happiness
“Our focus is to collect more toys and spread more Al-Maadheed says: “We are planning other
happiness,” asserts Box of Happiness founder Alya workshops to collect more toys and make more
Al-Maadheed. children happy.”
The charity ran a workshop in the Doha Festival There are some challenges – for instance making
City Mall during Ramadan, setting a challenge to sure all the gifts are in pristine condition. “The quality
fill one thousand boxes, to go to one thousand of the content of our boxes is really important to us,”
underprivileged children. In the event, people and says Al-Maadheed. ”We put a lot of time into sorting
corporations donated 6,577 toys, exceeding the goal the toys, to ensure that the toys are clean and in
by some margin. perfect condition.”
The toys were then sorted by gender and age, to The charity is spreading its wings globally, with
make sure that the right box was sent to the right the help of international partners. Al-Maadheed
child. Hundreds have already been distributed, many explains: “Our first trip was to Bangladesh. There
to children living in conflict zones or extreme poverty. we participated with Qatar Red Crescent, who
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