It will be full of date palm trees, and all fruit will be donated to the needy.
The creation of any kind of green space in this city is always a cause for celebration – but Dubai’s newest park will have an extra special purpose.
Dubai Municipality has announced the opening of Charity Oasis, which is being dubbed the “world’s first charity park”.
What makes it a charity park? Well, it will have thousands of date palms that will produce fruit to be donated to less fortunate members of our society.
The park will be located adjacent to Mushrif Park in Deira.
HOW CAN I HELP?
Anyone in the UAE is able to donate a date palm to the park, as long as certain conditions are met. All you have to do is contact the Municipality’s call centre on 800900 to find out more.
According to Yazan Awwad, a senior landscape specialist who is involved in the project, you can buy a date palm tree for around Dhs1000 from a nursery.
“We will be displaying the names of the donors at the park,” he told Gulf News.
“This will be something the next generations can see because date palm trees last for six to seven decades.”
The date palm is a fitting choice for the park, considering it was once described by HH Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan as the “tree of life”.
“For us, the date palm is, and always has been, truly the tree of life,” he wrote in his book, Feast of Dates.
“We have grown up with this remarkable species and its many products and find it impossible to imagine life without it. When we admire a date palm, we are looking at the foundations of our civilisation and the sustaining force for countless generations.”
As well as being generally delicious, dates are a superfood with many health benefits. So this really is a ‘sweet’ initiative…
