"Expatriate Food" .. You get Arabic food and you are in the heart of Europe

Ola Moussa - Gaza

A youth team from Gaza, Palestine, has created an electronic application that allows the reception of Arab expatriates in some European countries - Germany, Austria, Belgium and the Netherlands - for a variety of Arab food in their countries of residence.

Thanks to the application, the expatriates were able to receive Palestinian, Moroccan, Shami and Iraqi dishes.

The initiative was led by Abdullah Jarghoun, 26, who holds a master's degree from Al-Azhar University in computing and information systems, and works in the field of web before moving towards an application that meets the needs of Arab expatriates living in Western countries after noticing their need for those foods that bring them to the memories of their home countries.

Motivations
Jargon launched the application after noting that a large number of Gaza's expatriate youth traveled long distances and moved from one city to another in search of Palestinian or Arab food, and that his brother, for example, was traveling from the city of Sydney to Melbourne, Australia to eat Syrian Arab food.

The author of the idea on the difficulties faced by Arab expatriates in obtaining halal food and exposure to the racism of some restaurants that provide only Western cuisine, which led him to think about the establishment of an application that facilitates the access of Palestinian and Arab expatriates to families that prepare Arab food and dishes.

Jargon began working on the application since 2018 through the feasibility study and details, using an acquaintance before the number rises to four and then 16 people now.

"The idea has come true this year and we have become an integrated team between Android and iOS application developers, the design department and the marketing department. There is a section for system analysts and technical support. The application has spread to Germany, the Netherlands, Belgium and Austria," he said.

The application has now reached more than 800 productive families in the four countries, most of them in the Belgian capital Brussels: four hundred productive families and nine hundred users, the total number of users is 8,000 people and the number of interactions is two thousand and has been met 200 requests during the last two months.

Difficulties
The implementation team is facing difficulties in light of the Israeli siege on the Gaza Strip and the lack of freedom of movement between the team and European countries to focus their work in the targeted countries.

The team communicates with productive Arab families under siege conditions through site-funded advertisements and advertisements via expatriate groupings on outreach.

The application provides a service to identify the locations of productive families near his whereabouts or closest to the area where he resides to get the Arabic food that he wishes to eat.

The team is looking for support from refugee support organizations in Europe or investors to develop their project.

According to the director of marketing department Mahmoud Abu Abed that Arabs are accepting the application for halal food and that the team is currently using four marketing representatives and he hopes to increase their number to work in many European countries.

Abu Abed pointed out that the cuisine on the application is not available in Arabic restaurants in European countries such as grape leaves, Palestinian Sammakia and Palestinian Muftoul and Kibbeh Shamiya and that Arabs of Moroccan nationalities, Tunisian, Syrian, Palestinian and Iraqi are preparing.

Turnout
Abu Abed explains that the most sought-after foods are: Maftoul, Maqlouba, Mokhsen (Palestinian dishes), Kebbeh Al Shamiya, Syrian Bulbul's Nest and Gulf Kabsa. And Arabs in recent years, everyone praised the use of the application being supervised by young people from Gaza. "

According to programmer and application data analyst Israa Jendia, the team seeks to meet the demands of Scandinavian families such as Sweden and Norway, and expand its activity in all European cities, and said that the team was able to reach many productive families in most European capitals.

"We opened the icon of the possibility of registering some families in need of temporary work by preparing Arabic food and providing decent income. As a team in Gaza, we get a percentage of the proceeds of food served."