TOGETHER WE CAN OVERCOME
It was the first week of January when we were given a link on zoom to watch. We all watched it together and all of us were a little emotional after that video. Who was in that video? Edhi Sahab was. We all have heard about him since our childhood. He lived a very simple life but left the biggest mark in Pakistan and even in the world. He made a shelter for orphans, senior citizens, mentally affected people. So simple yet so important work he had done in our land. We, as a citizen of Pakistan, were asked to collect funds for Edhi Foundation.
Looked easy! It was not, I tell you. We were divided into a group. We all had all sorts of plans. First, ask our close circle of family and friends. Next, spam the media, next connect with the organization and all this seemed a good and effective plan. We went with this! We were trying to collect funds individually, in our own best ways, but after some days we realize that people are not paying attention to our donation drive, it was because we were not representing ourselves as a group and we didn’t have any proper poster that could describe our motive.
We then designed a poster, which had all the collective information.
The title of Amal Batch 175, gave us a platform, which grabbed the attention of donors and we were able to attend to many people who asked us further about the drive.
If I were to work alone for any kind of donation drive that might not work because of some really valid reasons like people do not trust you unless you prove to them that the money will be in right hands, and with a group, it is easy for your audience to believe in the cause of your donation drive.
Well, the challenges weren’t over yet, especially when you have a limited amount of time. Most importantly in the current situation, when it is COVID-19 around, many people are jobless and being hopeless. We would approach someone to ask for their help they would instantly say their problem that they need help more. Some would say that they have already given.
We went through a group of people who said to donate tomorrow but didn’t. Many felt unsafe to give an amount of money to us. In the end, we came up with a solution to collect a very small amount of money by targeting a large audience. Approaching the different organizations was not easy too. We tried to contact them through different social media platforms (such as Facebook), even tried to contact them on their mentioned number; when we tell our cause, they would direct the call. Two of the organizations responded, but they already had too many cases and a lack of funding so they couldn’t help us out.
This experience was quite helpful for me in a scene of accepting failure because we have been doing this donation drive with a great purpose i.e., to help someone who needs your support, who relies on you and have great expectation from you. This was very helpful to create a passion in ourselves about these donations and whenever we got into anxiety or impatience condition, that purpose popped into our mind and put the same amount of energy that we have in the beginning.
And one thing that inspired us to cope up with that failure is the role of Edhi Saab, the way he had tackled these and set a brilliant example that you never have to give up because what you’re doing is a very honorable job so you must have a great passion with yourself in order to handle the obstacles in a best possible way.
Another perspective is that we have taken these failures as an opportunity, every time we got rejected by someone what we do next to self-assess our way to convey the message because maybe the message wasn’t satisfying enough for the subject to understand the purpose.
We should be proud of what we did. We all were a bit hesitant at first. We all had What if’s scenarios in our minds. We didn’t lose hope and tried our best to raise as much as we could. During the Pandemic, it was not easy! Everyone was facing a problem, but we all had one phrase in our minds “Little by little, a little becomes a lot.” The experience was eye-opening, how to raise funds. How to motivate people for a good cause. This all made us happy. In one way or another, we impacted someone’s life, and this made it worthwhile.
