Funds collection for Edhi Foundation- A try to help the Richest Poor Man’s Dream!
Who was Abdul Sattar Edhi?
Abdul Sattar Edhi was born in 1928 in a small village of Bantva near Joona Garh, Gujrat (India). The seeds of compassion for the suffering humanity were sown in his soul by his mother’s infirmity. When Edhi was at the tender age of eleven, his mother became paralyzed and later got mentally ill. Young Abdul Sattar devoted himself to looking after all her needs; cleaning, bathing, changing clothes and feeding.
Edhi’s mother died when he was 19. His personal experience made him think of thousands and millions, suffering like his mother, around with nobody to look after them. He thought that he had a call to help these people. He had a vision of chains of welfare centers and hospitals that could be opened to alleviate the pain of those suffering from illness and neglect. Edhi and his family migrated to Pakistan in 1947.
What is the focus of The Edhi Foundation?
The Edhi Foundation provides 24-hour emergency assistance across the entirety of Pakistan and internationally. The Foundation provides, among many other services, a shelter for the destitute, free hospitals and medical care, drug rehabilitation services, and national and international relief efforts. Edhi Foundation — the largest organizational set-up running in multidimensional areas in Pakistan modifies the catchphrase “Live and Let Live” by “Live and Help Live”, which means Edhi guides others that whilst passing the life, don’t let to live with hardships and difficulties, yet extend your every possible assistance to others, in case, any assistance is sought from you, to live with happiness and ease.
On a conclusionary note, Edhi strongly believes in protecting basic human rights without any discrimination of color, caste, and creed. My religion is “service for humanity” that is spanned over 56 years, thus our efforts and services are greatly liked and commended by all schools of thought, across Pakistan and many parts of the world.
Due to the sudden Demise of Edhi Saab in 2016, the Foundation lacks Funds and for that reason, AMAL ACADEMY (where I and my team is doing Fellowship) gave us the task to raise funds for the Foundation. In the start, the task was looking very hard to complete because none of us have ever been through such a practice of collecting funds but each and every one of us put their 100% efforts in the completion of the task and Alhamdo lillah we’ve collected a specific amount.
We used the following Poster to raise funds from social media.
The blog covers the experiences of Amal Academy’s tasks and highlights the experience of the fellows along with the problems we faced regarding the fundraising. Our thoughts are collectively based on the four points listed below:
- How was the experience of collecting funds for a social cause?
- Did you collect funds individually or in a group? How was it different?
- What challenges did you face? And how did you overcome those challenges?
- How has this experience helped you in accepting failure?
Our Experience:
- The first and major issue that we faced was nobody was Trusting us that we’re gathering these funds for EDHI Foundation, so we faced a lot of Trust issues. The issue was resolved when Ma’am Arooj sent us the Official Letter for the collection of Funds, I mean it really helped us.
- We are facing a situation, this time we are engaged in a war with a microparticle that can’t be seen with the naked eye. COVID-19 is most likely to affect third world countries such as Pakistan who don’t have enough foreign reserves, so the novel coronavirus shattered the Economy of Pakistan into pieces which in turn affect the economic status of each native of our country so most of the people rejected to donate just because of the issue they’ve faced due to coronavirus. All of them were blaming coronavirus for the Economic imbalance.
- The experience was great we interacted with our friends and family through social media, we also did our best reaching out to people we don’t know by uploading status updates on Facebook, Whatsapp and either social media platforms We felt energetic and highly motivated as we were doing this fundraising for a greater good.
- Going out as a group would not be feasible under these circumstances so the fundraising was done individually through our personal contacts, however, our discussions and the working procedure were decided through the Zoom App meeting, because it’s the only platform that we could use in such a situation.
- It was very difficult to meet in person with people or use a Stall to collect funds so for that reason we had to do Virtual fundraising without meeting people, so we took advantage of online platforms such as Easypaisa, JazzCash, and Bank accounts.
- One of the mates is from KARACHI and due to heavy rain and the disastrous situation in Karachi most of the people were not able to donate because they were already helpless and fighting with a disaster.
- One of the mates tried to reach the max number of people in herfamily and friends circle and even classmates, even she tried to convey her message to strangers passively (that comes in my friend’s friend and family). Although she spread her message to a lot number of audience, but the response was not good, and the reason they mentioned was Pandemic and Lockdown.
Overall this activity also promoted social responsibility in us as well as the people we approached. We would like to thank Amal Academy for giving us the opportunity to be of service to the Edhi foundation.
Akin to that, this activity really gave us the knowledge of how to solve a problem as a team and work effectively as a team. Moreover through this activity, we come to know about the real importance of Teamwork. There is a very famous saying about Teamwork:
“Teamwork is the ability to work together toward a common vision. The ability to direct individual accomplishments toward organizational objectives. It is the fuel that allows common people to attain uncommon results.” — Andrew Carnegie
What made Edhi a great servant of humanity? Where did Edhi come from? These are questions I can’t answer. But I stand as one of the many influenced by Edhi’s life and service.
Muhammed Ali Jinnah gave us Pakistan. Abdul Sattar Edhi gave our country its soul.
Thank you!