A Muslim group has teamed up with a city centre homelessness charity to serve up steaming platefuls of curry on cold winter nights.
Aberdeen Muslims attended the Street Friends Helping The Homeless outreach session tonight to hand out hot curry to those most in need.
Both groups gathered outside of the M&S on St Nicholas Street from 6pm as a lengthy queue of those in need formed.
Those in attendance made their way down a production line, first collecting food parcels and toiletries before they got to the “food box” tent and received a hot chicken or vegetarian curry.
The food seemed to go down as treat as hot coffee, tea, soup and clothes were also available at the tables behind.
Sumon Hoque of Aberdeen Muslims said they were happy to be relaunching their food initiative after postponing it due to coronavirus.
“We realise now that coronavirus isn’t going to go away time soon. Things are just going to get worse with redundancies and potentially another lockdown so we thought the best way to relaunch would be to collaborate,” Mr Hoque said.
“It’s not just for homeless people but for people who have lost their jobs, families who are struggling, those on Universal Credit – it can be a nice treat on a Wednesday.
“We want to encourage that. There is no reason for anyone to go hungry in Scotland.
“One of our slogans is ‘you shouldn’t let your neighbour sleep with an empty stomach’.”
Street Friends runs an outreach session twice a week, on a Wednesday and Sunday. Aberdeen Muslims will initially be out every second Wednesday to give out hot food but, depending on feedback, this could change to every week.
Communications Secretary of Street Friends, Sam Raion, said the volunteer group was excited to launch a new partnership that would benefit the most vulnerable in the community.
He said: “The hot curry is something extra for our service users who are used to just maybe getting noodles all the time.
“Justin has always said he wants to unite the community and this is what this partnership does.
“It’s a big city, it’s multicultural and this is about bringing people together.”
To get in touch with Street Friends about partnership or donations, email admin@streetfriendshelpingthehomeless.com.