Keeping a dream alive
Supporting Edhi’s legacy
And when I say supporting the legacy, I mean just lending a hand and doing the best we can from our side. At the end of the day the amount of work and effort that this man put into serving humanity, his name shall be remembered for ages to come.
For the first week, our focus was on developing the strategy and the mediums that will be used to promote this donation drive, while for the second week, the focus was on collecting as many funds as we can. The moto for the second week was “All for Edhi” or سب ایدھی کے لئے.
While some of us might have enjoyed the experience, what it truly showed was how hard it is for organizations such as Edhi to collect funding. Additionally, it helped us realize how important a symbol is for a cause, and how it affects when that symbol is no longer present.
Our focus was to take whatever came our way, we didn't just focus on the huge gobs of donations but also the ones that came from the “little” guy. People from all walks of life wanted to contribute to supporting this cause and we could not have been more grateful.
Members of Circle 1 had one mission for the second week, collect as much as possible. Plain and simple. Or that's what we thought as it was not simple at all. Trying to convince people to donate is one thing but that too during a pandemic proved to be our mount, Everest.
This week Abaad implemented a different strategy to gather funds, and his experiences are as follows;
Last week my focus was on building strategy and attracting an outward audience, whereas this week I planned on indulging the immediate circle. I reached out to over 30 people which mostly consisted of friends and family. Although I wasn’t able to meet my personal goal, it wasn’t unexpected on the contrary it was quite understandable. There were many different reasons for people not being able to donate, such as it being the end of the month. Another recurring theme was people not being comfortable sharing how much they donated, as well as it being Ramadan and people having already donated in the previous weeks.- Abaad
Experiences of another member are as follows;
This week I contacted a few organisations and friends, but only a few people actually got in touch with, and those who did had following things to say. Such as its month of ramadan and we donate to mosques or for the provision of food for the poorest of the community or in perapheligic center for aftari and sehri. These are the reasons why most of the people did not donate money- Asia
Next are the experiences of Asma and Mahnoor.
I reached out to around 40–45 people. Some of them refused to donate as they had already committed somewhere else or they already donated. Some of the people were generous enough to spread the word among their friends and family. I believe at the end of the day it’s the effort that counts not the amount. Mainly I used social media to contact people as I am in the corona red zone so I couldn’t go out to meet and request anyone personally. I was able to collect an amount of Rs. 5500 and there was a person who donated on my request but wasn’t ready to reveal the amount (we should respect that, at least I do). So far, the experience was good, and I learned a lot. Not to forget that I had to go a lot out of my comfort zone to ask for the donations as it was totally against my personality- Asma
This week my target was business organizations and startups. I contacted a few companies through my friend’s reference, but I got no positive response. I also personally texted few people, but some people just ignored my messages and others said we already donated. I tried my level best to convince people, but the overall response wasn’t positive this week- Mahnoor
Hira reached out to all of the people in her phone book and her experiences while gathering donations are as follows
I tried reaching out to startups or people in my contact list who have their businesses, startups, and something at their end to support their livings. Whcih totaled to around 30 people either with their own start-ups or who are freelancers.Still, this experience wasn’t really positive as I didn’t get a lot of positive responses and even a lot didn’t bother responding. Quite disappointing. One person tried donating 500$ but he has some issues at his end which couldn’t let him process the payment at moment, and later when I tried reaching him and suggested other ways, he didn’t even bother responding to my messages and calls. So I collected just a total of 10$ which is from my younger brother- Hira
Overall the experience was quite wonderful and it is not because of the money that we were able to raise or the people we interacted with but the satisfaction we got from being a part of something bigger than all of us- serving humanity. And doing our part in keeping the name of Edhi Baba alive.
Edhi was there when this country needed him so let’s be there for Edhi and keep his legacy alive.
Donate to your heart's content.
