EDHI-An evergreen name:

Pakistan is considered to be one of the generous countries where 98 percent of people take part in the charitable activities. Out there are many organizations in Pakistan who are collecting funds and are reaching out to deprived people. Among them is the EDHI Foundation, but after the demise of Abdul Sattar Edhi, we have seen the drastic reduction in the fund, and it has been difficult over the years for Edhi to collect the funds. So, the previous week we were told by Amal Academy to reach out to people and collect funds for the Edhi Foundation from the people within two weeks.

There were basically two strategies that we planned for the two week long project.

• In the first week we planned to collect funds individually where we approached our friends, relatives, close friends in our circle.
• In the second week we got out of our comfort zone ,and that is where we implemented the skills we have learned so far in the fellowship, specially the principal of progress “Ek Aur Ek Giyara”, we went to different venues and would persuade strangers for giving funds. We went to Hamdard Hospital where we collected funds.

Our circle’s experience was full of lessons. When we went to Hamdard Hospital, we were able to collect donations from only two people as the rest of the people were reluctant to give us money. They told us that they will give directly, we encouraged them to donate as soon as possible on their ends.

We also went to Maskan where we collected funds from 20 of the people and our total collected amount from Maskan was Rs.1620/-

After Maskan we went to Lucky One Mall where only 18 people donated us the funds and the total amount collected from there was Rs.3340/-

We have seen and heard about the EDHI Sahab contribution throughout his life, but we never thought it would be that hard to persuade people. But It is rightly said without hardship we would have not valued ease. This activity gave us the sense of achievement, and the value of money and how our smallest contributions can change the lives of an individual. When we reached the Edhi centre for donating the funds the way the lady was joyful to see the amount was amazing. Moreover, it provided us the chance to practice “leadership without authority” and gave us the sense of fulfilling our part as a responsible citizen.

We collected individually as well as in a group , the first week was quite easy as all the people we collected funds from were in our close circle. Standing in the passing by people trying to open our mouth, the lips seemed tightened as if the glue had sealed the lips. That is exactly what we encountered when we continued our journey in the second week. One incident happened when a man inquired us a lot to make sure if we were coming from a reliable source and money was going in the good hands, We showed the Amal authorization letter to prove that we were doing solely for the Edhi foundation.

The major challenge was to convince people to donate money. Most of them were already donating to some other charity foundations, so it was hard for us to make them believe that we were from a reliable source, and it was not at our end. Some of the people didn’t even bother to hear us.

This activity helped all of us in accepting failure, as many of the people refused to donate even for this noble cause just because they have trust issues. We learnt that failure is the part of our lives and we had to accept the failure in order to become successful. Nothing on this Earth comes without embracing failure. This activity also helped us in developing the skills of resilience, consistency and flexibility.