“I do not have any formal education. What use is education when we do not become human beings? My school is the welfare of humanity”
The Pakistani Humanitarian who said these beautiful and prestigious words is none other than Abdul Sattar Edhi Sb, who’s foundation shelters, 1200 orphaned or abandoned children. However, donations to Edhi Foundation have reduced to a large extent after the death Abdus Sattar Edhi, restraining day-to-day relief activities and service to ailing humanity.
On account of this, Amal academy encourages us to come out of our comfort zones and do collect the donations for the foundation. Hence, we were supposed to collect donations from family, friends, any acquaintances or even from a strangers. Since, demise of our beloved Edhi sb, his son Faisal is now managing the Edhi Foundation and has requested people to help donate as there is a fear of drop in the funds after Edhi Sb.’s death. Moreover, Edhi sb used to stand on the street begging for money. He would collect the smallest amount of money he would get for the foundation.
“Small acts when multiplied by millions of people, can transform the world.” (Haward Zinn)
So, our experiences and involvement will be around the following four points.
i) Experience of collecting funds.
ii) Planning and methods to collect funds.
iii) Challenges faced and ways to overcome them.
iv) How the experience has helped them in overcoming failure.
EXPERIENCE
We had a great experience collecting funds from family and friends. We were basically a whole batch of 60 students, who had to work for the fundraising. We’re supposed to divide into 8 to 9 circles for this activity. Each circle containing 7 members. It was really a diligent and time consuming activity. It took time to make people understand our role for the activity. Overall it was really amazing working voluntarily for the foundation.
PLANNING AND METHODS
First of all, we set up a meeting among circle leaders. After that we conveyed our strategies to our circle members through several virtual meetings. We set up a target of 35K per circle. In order to chase it, every individual was supposed to collect at least 5K. Moreover, we’ve received a permission letter from Amal team, we’ve even created a proposal for fund raising to collect donations on monetary or non- monetary terms such as ambulances etc from huge organizations and companies.
Also, we’ve tried our best to approach people through online platforms such as whatsapp, facebook and instagram. For which we’ve also provided online platforms for money transactions like easypaisa and jazz cash as well as provided with bank account no. for the convince of people. We’ve even created a poster and promoted it through out social media.
CHALLENGES
As, we’re the university students and the rest of my fellows are employed, so it’s been a bit difficult to take out some time for this activity from our jam packed time table. But, when we thought of its reward from ALLAH SWT, our hearts automatically lean towards this activity and the work was being done. Secondly, as it is the period of pandemic, this also made our strategy a bit hard.
EXPERIENCE HELPED IN ACCEPTING FAILURE
We’ve to tell ourselves that everything we want is not possible and it is totally out of our controls. Allah is the only super power who has power over all. We learnt to accept the facts after the completion of this activity.
Through out, this activity made us realise that donation and fulfil people’s need is the real meaning of life.
“Be the change you want to see in the world” (Mahatma Gandhi)
