The Richest Poor Man-Worthy Purpose

8 min readSep 11, 2020

Angel of Mercy

Story of a boy, Who was born in 1928 in a small village of Bantva near Joona Garh, Gujrat (India).A poor boy who had barely to eat lives with his mother and his father used to be out of the city for a job.

Since we learn most of the things from our surroundings and the people around us, the boy always looks up to his mother for guidance. His mother “Ghurba Bibi” inspired him and therefore he started an ambulance service which later on becomes the world’s biggest ambulance service

Ghurba Bibi is like the backbone of what that boy did. A lady who would give most of the money to the poor. The boy learns the true understanding of what it meant to be a human being. Ghurba Bibi starts to falling sick and In the end, she became completely paralyzed.

When that Boy was 19, his mother passed away. He lost the lady who always taught her to donate half of his money to the poor and that human was no more with him. His whole world was shattered.

After that boy moved to Karachi. He started working in a clothing store but he never lost his compassion for those in need around them. In this way. he joined a local community organization but when tried to tend to those outside of his community, other volunteers told him to not tend those outside their community. This did not settle well with him at all after this the boy opened a dispensary and likewise started an ambulance service. When people asked him why his ambulance helped Hindus and Christians too. He used to tell those people that its because his Ambulance was more Muslim than those people.

“Feed the hungry and visit a sick person, and free the captive, if he be unjustly confined. Assist any person oppressed whether Muslim or non-Muslim.” Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him)

Even in death, the boy gives light to two blind persons. The boy had pledged to donate his body organs. That Boy, That Human, That Muslim, and That true believer, That Philanthropist was “Abdul Sattar Edhi”.

What is the purpose of The Edhi Foundation?

Abdul Sattar Edhi devoted his own life to save other lives. The Edhi life purpose can be expressed in the phrase

“Live and let live” to “Live and help live”.

He first took to the streets of Karachi in 1951, asking for donations to set up a modest network of clinics and ambulances. By the time he died in the summer of 2016, his work had expanded to 335 Edhi Centres (where emergency and rescue services are provided throughout the year) and 1,800 ambulances across Pakistan.

His welfare projects encompass rehab centers, maternity homes, clinics, homes for the disabled and the elderly, orphanages, shelters for runaway children, schools, and a small hospital — all run by a small staff with the help of around 7,000 volunteers. He raised about 20,000 abandoned babies, trained 40,000 nurses, provided homes to 50,000 orphans, and facilitated one million deliveries at Edhi maternity homes. And he did not make any distinction between the recipients of his help on the basis of their caste, creed, and color even though the mullahs did not approve of this.

He also set up offices in Afghanistan, Nepal, the Middle East, Bangladesh, Canada, and the United States. When Hurricane Katrina hit the American city of New Orleans in 2005, he donated 100,000 US dollars for relief efforts there.

Our Strategy:

In July 2016 Faisal Edhi, son of late philanthropist Abdul Sattar Edhi, said in an interview with BBC that the Edhi Foundation fears a drop in donations as certain conservative elements are maligning his father and attempting to spread negative propaganda about him.

“There is a risk of lack of donations for the organisation because there is an active campaign run against the Edhi Foundation every year,” Faisal Edhi said.

The Foundation lacks Funds and for that purpose, We Batch 153 at AMAL Academy have been assigned a task to raise funds for Edhi Foundation. For this noble cause, 2 weeks were allocated to us.

We arranged a procedure to get funds as much as possible and begin implementing it. We initially designed a poster for social awareness and spread it everywhere on over our social media platforms. Furthermore, alongside this, we began to request that individuals show their love. Before the finish of the first week, we had collected more than 35k PKR. Nothing is possible without a team. I and my team did their best. It’s 2020 the year where whole worlds stopped, Yes the COVID-19 Virus pandemic Year. So for donation purpose, we have to focus on Online mediums and the people that are so close to us means our Family. So donations fundraising began with the family and it helps us a lot. We collaborated with other group leaders at AMAL Academy for support and Suggestion. We created the WhatsApp group for this purpose.

Collaboration with different group leaders itself is a learning experience. It is like working with genius people where you will always have new ideas to make your mission more successful. The sum of the whole is bigger than the sum of each part. Working together collaboratively can result in greater accomplishments as compared to each group working on its own separately.

It was quite learning and helpful. At the end of our last week, we have collected a significant amount of 1Lakh for the Edhi Foundation.

We belive that we have to be the reason someone smiles,the reason someone feels loved and believes in the goodness in people.

We have a thought that we are lucky enough to have this opportunity to play our role in the welfare of mankind.

The blog covers the different aspects of our mission like Experience of collecting funds, Challenges faced during all this, Experience in accepting failure, and the funds collected individually & in a group.

Experience of Funds Collection:

Like I said beginning of anything is difficult and it takes courage to do something about that. Just like a beginner, we have to face a lot of problems and it was quite difficult for us. This Experience was all about learning, facing challenges, and persistency. It was neither tough nor easy.

The world is full of different kinda people. Some Appreciate you and some discourage you but I and my team always see the world with kindness.

“The world is full of nice people. If you can’t find one, be one.”
― Nishan Panwar

So Obviously we were also been appreciated but with that, we have to face comments like “The Team is Scam”.

We get responded by people some people appreciated us and similarly, on the other hand, some discouraged us by throwing loose comments on us, some people asked us very weird questions like by demanding proofs.

Building your trust in the community is the major task of this whole experience but in the end, we achieved that.

Challenges faced during collection:

Challenges are a part of every activity and there were ups and downs. Nothing comes easily, you have to strive for that. There were challenges like COVID Panademics, Trust Issues, Team Management, Handling Setbacks, Reaching out to people, Convincing others, and lack of awareness.

Going as a team for fundraising is not a good option in the COVID situation. So we decided to go outside as an individual to raise funds. We also had to convince different social business platforms, bloggers to post a “Story” to help us. We have contacted People like “Raza Samo”,” JustAnotherBrownGirl” and
“Glitzberg” for support and help. Arranging Meeting and managing time with our own hectic routines was challenging but we have to sacrifice a lot for the greater good.

You have to handle challenges with the brave heart and We as a team did that and the reason behind was that We have a firm belief in Allah. We were working hard and we knew the result is in our Allah’s Hand.

“Allah helps those who help themselves”Quran

Accepting Failures:

We as a team believed that Failures is another name of Learning. We always used to represents “Failure” in our group as “Moody Teacher”.The teacher who is kind of “Saryal ” but teaches us a lot. You always learn from whatever you are facing your life, either it’s fundraising tasks or some other problem.

Just like Micheal Jorden said:

“I can accept failure, everyone fails at something. But I can’t accept not trying.” “You must expect great things of yourself before you can do them.”

Accepting failure is essential because it helps you a lot, it makes you stronger. It is like when you are thinking of giving up, your teammates jumped up and motivates you. You learn teamwork. You learn to love, feelings other pains, and much more.

After facing these hardships we realize more clearly the efforts of Edhi Sb in collecting funds. You learn others' pain when you go through the same pain, they had. This is when you step into humanity and kindness. More fundraising will be a part of our journey as a team in Amal Academy and in our Life.

In the end, I want to add that

“You, me, or nobody is gonna hit as hard as life. But it ain’t about how hard you hit. It’s about how hard you can get hit and keep moving forward; how much you can take and keep moving forward. That’s how winning is done!”

Thank You Amal Academy for giving us the opportunity to learn so many things and the pain & efforts of Edhi Shb.

Here is a glimpse of our efforts as a team and our Winning.