Mobile is the newest way used by charity-loving Jordanians

By Tareq Delwani, IOL Correspondent

AMMAN, November 1 (IslamOnline.net) – Doing away with traditional ways of giving alms, Jordanians use their cellular phones to help the poor and the needy and donate for charities during the holy fasting month of Ramadan.

The country's two giant mobile operators have already launched a Ramadan campaign in cooperation with Jordan's only cancer treatment center, Al-Hussein, to raise funds for cancer patients.

"By sending an SMS, one dinar goes directly to cancer patients," read an ad portraying one of the many children stricken by the disease.

"Any Jordanian can take part by sending the SMS 'life' to 2222 and one dinar for each SMS will go directly to Al-Hussein Center," Mohammad Aref, head of the IT department at one of the two service providers, told IslamOnline.net.

"A confirmation message will be automatically sent back to the donators," he added.

"You can also dial up a special number and donate one dinar for every minute on line, while listening to useful information about the earnest efforts made to combat cancer."

Charity Rush

The campaign has indeed appealed to a large number of Jordanians, who keep sending SMS and dialing up the cancer numbers, paying no heed to their phone bills.

"It is because Jordanians love to pay Zakah during Ramadan in general and the rising number of subscribers of course," Khaled Shatat, a PR employee at the second company, told IOL.

Mobile subscribers surged to more than one and half million with companies' officials expecting donations to exceed one million dinars during the holy month.

But at the grassroots level, the move received mixed reactions with some Jordanians expressing misgivings that the campaign would take an advantage of charity-loving people.

"It might be profit-seeking campaign…Surely, the SMSs will bring those guys handsome profits," Arwa Mohammad, a university student, told IOL.

But companies' officials countered that they "are obliged to pay (for charities) the whole donations nothing more nothing less."