Sou se Sawera — Contributing to Edhi’s noble cause
Edhi Foundation, the name not unknown to anybody and an emblem of philanthropy, kindness and social service. The way the small initiative of Edhi Sb has stretched out to this enormous organization internationally has undoubtedly been inspirational and urged a significant chunk of the population to reach out to it in case of any philanthropist collaborations. However, after the demise of Edhi Sb, the foundation has seen a decline in funds. ‘But the organization was already so huge and doing wonders, what difference would the decrement of some funds get it?’. If the monetary help to the organization, be it so large, would keep on decreasing, it’s not far that thousands of hundreds of needy would starve and be left unattended. This decrement was a concern. Getting to know which, my fellows and I at Amal turned together to do our part in mitigating the situation for Edhi Foundation.
We had seven members in our circle. In a meeting, we unanimously decided to have peer-to-peer fundraising. It was also decided to collaborate with other Circles to have a considerable impact. We came up with the name of the campaign “Sou se Sawera” — which meant to donate at least Rs.100 for the cause of humanity. Any campaign needs proper initialization, and thus we made posters for the same. A number of beautiful posters were designed by the fellows, which eminently demonstrated their enthusiasm for the cause.
The posters were circulated on social media among our friends, fellows and acquaintances. The details provided with the posters included the accounts of the Edhi Foundation. While the digital campaign was prevailing, we had a concern for in-person donations in our respective universities and workplaces. But it was the last week of the year, Winter Vacations in most institutes. This was the first challenge we faced, i.e. awaiting the reopening of the university because digitally, the response was not as satisfactory as we needed. A week had passed to the digital campaign, yet no significant results were seen. This was quite a demotivating block for us all. Weren’t we working hard? Weren’t our efforts up to the mark? Our minds were cluttered with all of these thoughts.
The people that we contacted were mostly our friends and family members. Also, we had asked them to spread the word to their circles too, which included the people who were complete strangers to us. It could be approximated that we spread the word to 350 people digitally, out of which only a few donated. Many of them did not respond; their silence spoke more than their words. The amount that we have been able to raise in this one week is Rs.1.5k only which seemed a failure to us.
At the beginning of the next week, the institutions got opened, and university students started coming back to routines, a ray of hope for our demotivated thoughts. Everybody wanted to give their best this week to get the most of the remaining time.
I, being the only member from Hyderabad in our circle of 7, had to initiate something here on my own too. The day university opened was a hectic one due to back to back classes. However, the next day, I went straight to the printer shop in the morning, got the posters printed and started pasting them at essential points in the university, i.e. the Central Cafeteria, my department’s gate and the Central Girls Common Room.
After taking classes, I went into two classes and announced the campaign ‘Sou se Sawera’. Being an ambivert, Public Speaking was sometimes not fun for me. However, I did that and once out of my comfort zone, and I enjoyed it. My friends too joined me after watching me work for it enthusiastically. Some of the people gave on spot donations, while some told us they would do it online. The response was not as overwhelming as I had assumed; however, it helped me add to the fund. Maybe the students here were not that financially stable, being hosteller they had to manage within specific amounts, and Rs.100 seemed a big one, so I even mentioned to donate any amount you like. Some of them, their passion eminent from their ways, came forward and contributed Rs.50 too.
Finally, the funds we collected rose to 5.45k.
The learnings imparted to me from this activity have been accepting failure: when people would not donate or refuse to us, as a result of which we had less amount of donations; changing strategies whenever needed, as I had to shift from digital campaigning to in-person drives. One other thing that I realized from the task is empathizing with people and their situations. At times, we overlook situations and make up our minds within what we perceive of the scenario; however, if thinking from another perspective, it dawns upon us that it was not as bad as we had assumed. When people refused to donate, I was demotivated and at the same time disappointed in them, ‘Why would someone not be contributing to a noble cause, where a few pennies would get you rewards and gains! How mean!’. Looking deeper into the situations, I comprehended that many factors contribute to it rather than just being mean. Thus, I became more empathetic.
