{"id":1589,"date":"2016-08-15T01:18:29","date_gmt":"2016-08-14T17:18:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/islamic-relief.org.my\/sandbox_www\/?p=1589"},"modified":"2017-04-22T07:24:13","modified_gmt":"2017-04-21T23:24:13","slug":"people-just-couldnt-believe-that-we-were-there-to-help-them","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/islamic-relief.org.my\/sandbox_www\/people-just-couldnt-believe-that-we-were-there-to-help-them\/","title":{"rendered":"\u201cPeople just couldn\u2019t believe that we were there to help them\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"

For World Humanitarian Day we\u2019re paying tribute to our humanitarian heroes in the field.<\/strong><\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

Zina Shataeva is a social worker in our one-to-one sponsorship programme working in the Russian Federation. She has seen more than a decade of changes since starting with Islamic Relief.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve worked as a social worker for Islamic Relief for the past 11 years. At the beginning, our work was very difficult and there were different reasons for that.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cAt that time, we started to identify orphans and to form the orphan\u2019s database. We collected data in schools and then conducted address checks.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWe didn\u2019t have a vehicle provided through work so we had to use a public transport for monitoring. That was very difficult for us, especially in rural areas.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWe also found that people did not trust us and did not want to give any information about their children. They would not allow us to take their pictures, and most of them asked us \u2018Why do you need our pictures?\u2019 and \u2018What will you use them for?\u2019<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cPeople just couldn\u2019t believe that we were there to help them. We needed to have great patience and to stay very calm to make people trust us.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThings were very dangerous at that time, when daily explosions and terrorist attacks in the city were a common occurrence. I saw a lot of explosions in the road while I was working, when people would run from their vehicles and wait until it was safe to move on.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cAllah saved me, probably, because I was performing charitable deeds. A lot of our orphans lost their parents during such terrorist acts. It was really an awful situation.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cNow our work is not as dangerous or as frightening as it was. We are working in better conditions \u2013 but the psychological factor still remains, as every family has its own story, problems and difficulties.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cMany lost their breadwinner and their support. They feel loneliness and I take that close to my heart.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI feel it deeply when I see a family waiting for a sponsor and I hope that every child in our database will get assistance. It makes me so happy when I see happy children.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

For World Humanitarian Day we\u2019re paying tribute to our humanitarian heroes in the field. Zina Shataeva is a social worker in our one-to-one sponsorship programme working in the Russian Federation. She has seen more than a decade of changes since starting with Islamic Relief. \u201cI\u2019ve worked as a social worker for Islamic Relief for the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1590,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1589","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-worldwide","entry"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/islamic-relief.org.my\/sandbox_www\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1589"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/islamic-relief.org.my\/sandbox_www\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/islamic-relief.org.my\/sandbox_www\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/islamic-relief.org.my\/sandbox_www\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/islamic-relief.org.my\/sandbox_www\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1589"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/islamic-relief.org.my\/sandbox_www\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1589\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1591,"href":"https:\/\/islamic-relief.org.my\/sandbox_www\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1589\/revisions\/1591"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/islamic-relief.org.my\/sandbox_www\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1590"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/islamic-relief.org.my\/sandbox_www\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1589"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/islamic-relief.org.my\/sandbox_www\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1589"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/islamic-relief.org.my\/sandbox_www\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1589"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}