Ready to kindle the light of awareness!
By: Fatima Tariq
Tags: Startup

Ready to kindle the light of awareness!

Orphans — The equally human beings

The need of the hour:

There are approx. 253 million orphans worldwide waiting for someone to accept them and if not accepting then at least hear them out, play with them and give them a single reason to smile again, just like everyone around them do it everyday.

Can we take a day out from our busy lives in spending it with the ones who deserves to be treated as humans as well, — I think we can, if we want to. Because, if not money then we can definitely spend our time on them.

“A small charity has a big impact.

All about us:

Mashal-e-Shaoor is a non-profit organization with enthusiastic team of young individuals ready to play their role in making the lives of orphans a little happening by conducting awareness and fun sessions with them which would be interacting as well as and learning opportunity for them that they would remember and relish afterwards.

Our Logo

The team consists of 6 members:

Iqra Masood Fatima Tariq Sadiqa Bari Shaf Ahmed Hashim Ahsan Ahmad Qazi

We have divided our team in 3 parts, — The thinkers (Iqra & Shaf), The doers (Hashim & Ahmad), The caretakers (Fatima & Sadiqa). We have norrowed down 5 themes to tailor our sessions in the orphanage.

Health Day Environment Day Culture Day Talent Day Fun Day

Inspiration:

When we began talking we realized all of us had one passion and that was education. We simply knew that this was something each one of us really wanted to contribute towards. Although our team is comprised of a diverse team and we all had our own idea of education and things we wanted to make sure we were teaching our children and society in general, it was agreed we wanted to reach out to those whom seldom the fruits of prosperity reach, the orphans.

Channeling our enthusiasm:

In the beginning we were really ambitious, and had planned out a huge service program which we dropped quickly knowing well it would not be possible but of course for brief while we had to let our imaginations loose to scrounge through all the possibilities. However, it did not take us long to settle down on the idea that we could definitely deliver educative sessions to a group of willing people. Thus in our first week we set out searching and reaching out to know who could use our services the most.

Saddiqa’s experience with the gypsy and beggar children had been insightful even though she had given them food and book earlier, she told that upon inquiring many of the children were not really interested in getting an education yet. This posed a problem how could we deliver to children who were not even willing, suddenly it clicked, orphanage!

Orphanage is the place where the children really have no one to take care of them and provide opportunities in life save the institution they are living in. Unlike the children on the street who at least have a family to go back to and some considerable freedom, not their before condition is any neglect worthy still, we all agreed that orphanages are largely neglected. Since they are less obvious and depend solely on their benefactors.

Furthermore after our group session with Sir Ghazi we finalized that we would do a deserving orphanage, that’s less in the limelight and does not receive a lot of visits or any other beneficiaries.

Challenges & Strategies:

Like all groups we have had our ups and downs, in the second week we almost changed our whole idea because this idea it seemed as if was not passionate motivating everyone, but after yet another session with Sir Ghazi we realized it has been due to poor communication that we were suddenly drawing so loose and in tangent directions. An important lesson was learned. With smog, falling ill and many other obstacles things slowed down contrary to our initial plan. But we have recovered and are on a steady path.

Like the original plan, the duty to visit the orphanages in person was assigned to the boys who could travel easily while the girls aided in looking up possible locations ans sharing it with them. We realize that some members can carry out initial steps and the next steps can be carried out by another suitable team member.

Progress so far:

Hence, Shaf, Hashim and Ahmad, set out to secure a place, visit to make an analysis of logistics: how many children does and orphanage have? are they willing to let us do a session? how much space do they have? the ages of the students? Shaf and Ahmad were able to find two separate places and in this week we will be finalizing which place. The had a positive experience in this as well, orphanages were actually very willing to allow us to do educative sessions. The orphanages were, Dar-ul-Shafqat and Child Protection & Welfare Bureau.

A desired venue for sessions

Hashim has created the social media pages (Facebook & Instagram) and logo as well as cards.

Picture for cards and social media logos

While Saddiqa and Iqra are taking active responsibility to manage the page and share it. This will allow us to reach out to people for funds collections as well as having an organized front. Fatima is organizing our plan and try to ensure we are able to implement it as best as possible.

According to plan, once the place is finalized and a better idea of our audience, we will make a detailed plan of our activities on the already set themes. We have made a tentative list but as one of our member been working with young children and with our aim to deliver something long lasting experience not just fun, we need to consciously design and choose our activities. While we did plan on installing a small library, we have kept that as a bonus step now. For now we are collecting activity ideas, seeing others sessions ideas like Kahani corner and the storykit program. Our first target is to collect enough funds for the activities. We have a tentative goal of 10,000 Rs. in which we have already collected 2000 Rs through fundraising fun activities at Amal.

Upcoming Plans:

The Edhi fund collection has been an help full activity in letting us really experience the spirit for working for others, now the fund collection for our project seems less daunting. We are also working on making bookmarks, dairies with another group, to use as an incentive in our donations collecting.

So, in conclusion in this week we will be wrapping up our plans, in the coming weekend we will finalize our actual sessions activities, and begin active fund collecting. In the next week we will be collecting our required material and preparation for sessions and by the will of God, in the weekend after this one, we will be doing our sessions. We all really look forward to them and we will all be present to carry them out.