Restaurant, MUN's Muslim association team up to help students in isolation during Ramadan

Newfoundland and Labrador's two-week quarantine period poses challenges for any international student arriving with no friends or family to help them with food or supplies through 14 days of quarantine.

For students of Muslim faith spending their two weeks in isolation duringRamadan, a month of fasting from dawn until dusk, it's extra-challenging.

"Those are specific times when we are supposed to have our meals, and when they are not getting proper food it can be hard for them to go throughout the day, especially in a new place like this,"Jannath Naveed of Memorial University's Muslim Students'Association told CBC News.

The association andSt. John's restaurant NJ's Kitchen have been working together to help incoming Muslim students through Ramadan, which ends Wednesday. When the holy month began, the plan was to provide a food hamper to students and families every Sunday. But shortly after initiative began, Naveed said, calls began rolling in from newcomers to Canada and the organization decided to start offering daily help.

"That was the least we could do for them," Naveed said."These are people who really need it, and we wanted to includeeveryone. We wanted them feellike a part of the community."

Student Mohammed ImtiyazAhmed, whocompleted his quarantine in his residence, said it was MSA that helped him make it through, by including meals for Ramadan, as he didn't have access to appliances.

"That's the best thing I've ever had in my life.The help I got from the volunteers, [now] I want to help others."

Giving back

The staff at NJ's Kitchen have been kept busy. Co-owner Jamil Hossaintold CBC News it's a tradition, as much as Ramadan itself, to give away as much food as the business can afford to those who need it during the month-long celebration.

When he was contacted by the association to ask him to help new students arriving in Newfoundland and Labrador for the first time, he said, he was happy to do it.

"The students,when they're coming for the first time to Canada, they don't have a phone, they don't have bank cards and stuff," Hossain said.

"So I tell them they can call us through WhatsApp or any social media, messenger, leave your name and number. Don't worry about paying anything right away.Feel like home."

Hossain said before he arrived in Newfoundland and Labrador, in 2011, he was told about the generosity of the people in the province.

"This is what I learned from Day 1: how to be friendly in Newfoundland."

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