As  I’m currently visiting Palestine, I couldn’t help but notice the difference in culture, eating habits, purchasing habits and other social factors between here and Oman. My main observation was the difference in the rate of obesity and people suffering from diabetes. From what I’ve seen, people in Oman are generally bigger. They’re bigger; they eat more, purchase more and generally live a lazier lifestyle. Now this is not a problem if exercise was thrown in the picture, but this is usually not the case. When it came to diabetes though, I noticed that many more people here suffered from it. This did not make any sense to me as obesity and diabetes are usually proportionally linked. So I took this to the internet and here’s what I found:

For not so surprising reasons ¹ , the Middle East is the second major diabetes event area in the world and the obesity rate has more than doubled since 1980 ² . I say “not so surprising” because with the rapidly growing economies, individual wealth and improvements in the standards of living in the Middle east, it’s quite normal for this to happen. The shocking result however, was the % of obesity in Oman and Palestine. I was honestly shocked when I saw that the percentage was much higher in Palestine. But I guess statistics are statistics and here are my findings:

Now as shocking as the result was, looking at the results from other gulf states is not surprising or shocking at all; the obesity rates there are insane (A simple observation would be switching to another gulf state’s television channel and observing how overweight many individuals are). Anyway, so obesity was a failing observation. Moving on to diabetes then…

First of all, I’d like to introduce this interesting info graphic I found online in  which you can clearly see the % rate of diabetes in the Arab world is much higher than many other places around the globe (3 of the 5 top countries are Arab and from the gulf region):

‘Join the crowd’

Seeing construction workers working under the terrible heat where temperatures could reach round about 50 degrees Celsius gave the young student at the Modern College of Business and Science the idea of distributing cold water to them, I-Care was born.

So what is I-Care one may think? Well, it’s an initiative that aims to raise awareness to the local community about construction workers, ground crew, maintenance staff and street cleaners on their hard working conditions outside in the unbearable heat as the temperatures in the summer could reach over 50 degrees Celsius, therefore distributing cold water to them would show them that the community cares about them and appreciates their hard work and efforts.

Five years since the launch of I-Care, it has over 200 volunteers, and over 600 Facebook and Twitter followers. So far, since the launch they have distributed over 600 chilled water bottles, however this year they aim to distribute 2000 cold water bottles before lunch-time. They aim to provide cold water to not only construction workers but also maintenance staff, ground crew and street cleaners.

How can YOU help?

Well, first of all follow them on Twitter and like their Facebook page to get updates on the agenda, and the plan..second of all, volunteer to distribute cold water bottles on Thursday the 19th of July 2012 at Al-Fateh Square in Wattaya ( Near Khawla Hospital) at 10am. Tell family and friends  and I hope to see you all there!

 

“We have launched caps, t-shirts with the I-Care logo to be sold for 3 R.O and 4 R.O respectively in which sales will go directly towards the initiative. We also accept donations from different people and companies”

“Our method for accepting donations is by contacting us through our email icareoman@gmail.com”

My dad always told me that doing good deed is not just donating money, it’s about being a part of it, volunteering and putting a smile on ones face is the most important.

Twitter: @ICareOman

Facebook: I-Care initiative

Blink. Left. Right. They’re everywhere. The object of so much love can be seen around the country, almost everybody has one. Blackberry mobile phones continue to sell very well around Muscat and have been for the past couple of years. The device has swept aside previously huge market-leader Nokia and it still manages to fight off the rest of the world’s revered Apple iPhone. The secret to everybody hearts or pocket has been the notorious BlackBerry Messenger that you may have heard while passing people ‘What’s your BBM’ or ‘BB..BB’. Phones outside the Middle East constantly compete on bringing customers new features in every new model but Research In Motion (Blackberry manufacturer) has managed to get away with keeping it simple and that is changing nothing. They must be on to something. Let us not forget the second most important thing about the phone, BRICK BREAKER.

The device has built a huge fan base in the country. Often seen as a business device of communication and yet it has managed to start a trend that has pretty much set a standard for mobile phones. Users are shocked to hear outsiders admit that they don’t have a ‘BB’, if you don’t have one then I’m sure you have noticed this and trust me you will probably end up buying one just like I did. Even the IPhone and Android users eventually get a BB for the sake of “belonging”.  Thankfully I have managed to not get addicted as the majority have. I try to resist every-time I see an entire group of people at dinner whipping out their phones and sometimes chatting to each-other even when they’re less than metres away.

Get out there and buy one, unless you’re a cool person already *sarcasm*. But on a serious note if you want to communicate locally then you may as well, the service has brushed texting aside with the cost being as low as 2 Rials a week. You’ll be sure to find a lot of funny messages & groups and inevitable a little garbage. The addiction will probably get to you, acting normal will only make you look stranger to ‘BBers’. The trend doesn’t seem to be slowing down anytime soon. Excellent for pretend-typing when walking past people.