Published on Dec 21 2006 

Background

 

 

 

 

 

The initiative had been organised by the Khuddam of Manchester North initially and it was agreed by the Aamla members that funds would be raised in order to purchase gifts and sweets for the children of Acorn Ward between ourselves.

Fundraising

Initially this initiative was going to be on a very small scale being financed by the core members of the Manchester North Aamla. By the grace of Allah between Nadim Khawaja Sahib, Qaid Manchester North, Shamas-ul-Haq Sethi (Naib Qaid Manchester North), Waqar Ahmad (Naib Qaid Manchester North) and Shiraz Sethi (Mohtamid Manchester North) we managed to raise a healthy £120 between us.

However, on short notice, it was decided that an announcement should be made at Jummah in order for the whole Jamaat both male and female to take part in this charitable scheme. Alhamdolillah a fantastic effort by the members of the Jamaat meant that we managed to raise funds in excess of £190 in a matter of 10 minutes. I would personally like to thank the Lajna of Manchester who contributed a total of £100 towards the scheme.

Gifts Purchased

As we had now raised in excess of £300, we decided to purchase gifts which would target all age ranges but instead of spending all of the money collected on gifts for the children, we decided to save some of the monies in order to fund another project of visiting an old people’s home in the new year.

We agreed upon purchasing a Sony Playstation2 console with eight games and two joypads, a DVD player with a few DVD’s, 8 board games in 1, large boxes of celebration chocolates, balloons and Christmas crackers.

Visit

Atif Ahmad (Qaid Manchester South) and Ataul Rafeeq Chaudhry, (Mohtamid Manchester South) accompanied myself to the hospital. We were welcomed by Joanne Martin – the Head Nurse at Acorn Ward who we sat down with and explained to her who we were and what we had brought for the children. After showing her all the gifts we were donating she said, “This is very generous of you … the kids of the ward will really appreciate these donations”. She further added, “The teenagers will love the Playstation”.

One of the Assistant nurses was also present during the distribution of the gifts and was really amazed at the amount of money we had raised to fund these gifts and she added “… the TV programmes are turned off at 9pm in the Ward so teenagers get really bored. The purchase of the DVD player will allow those kids to watch films now and keep them entertained”.

Some of the parents had given consent for us to take a photograph with some of the children of the Ward to which we duly obliged.

Conclusion

In conclusion, by the grace of Allah the initiative was a huge success in all aspects and I would humbly like to thank the Manchester Jamaat as a whole for their generous contributions. May Allah bless you all and enable you all to participate further in these schemes in the future.