CAIRO - You want to donate to Somalia's people, who are now suffering famine, but you don't have time to do it or don't know how to help? The solution is to send an empty SMS (Short Message Service by mobile phone) to the number 9596, which costs LE5. This idea is a campaign launched by ‘We Are All Khaled Saeed', a popular page on the social networking website Facebook, on the first day of Eid el-Fitr, entitled: ‘Give eidiya to the children of Somalia'. Eidiya is an eid money gift given to children and women (particularly relations) by parents and relatives to cheer the little ones and make eid a special occasion for them. The campaign is supervised by the Arab Doctors Union and ‘Alexandrians without Borders' volunteering group, which collected over LE1 million in a previous campaign. They used the money to buy medical aid and went to Somalia and Kenya last week to distribute it in person to affected people, in collaboration with the Arab Doctors Union. Money donated during the more recent campaign will reach Somalia in the form of food and medical aid after the eid holiday (due to end, tomorrow); again it will be distributed directly by ‘Alexandrians Without Borders', in conjunction with the Arab Doctors' Union, to ensure that aid reaches the needy. The campaign has been enthusiastically welcomed by the members of the page. The page founder, Wael Ghoneim, an Internet activist and computer engineer with an interest in social entrepreneurship, whose page, which contains over million members, helped spark the revolution, was hoping they might raise LE100,000. At the time of going to press, they had already raised far more ��" a total of LE165,570.
