Dec
Islamic Society Raises Over £31,000 for Charity Week
Congratulations to the University of Southampton Islamic Society (ISOC) who have raised an incredible £31,232 for Charity Week! This week the event ran over two weeks introduced many online events to allow fundraising to continue during the pandemic. In their blog below ISOC tell us more about their fundraising and the important work Charity Week supports every year.
Islamic Society (ISOC) takes part in an annual youth volunteer-led campaign known as Charity Week, a campaign with a 100% donation policy, funded by Islamic relief. What sets charity week aside from other fundraising initiatives is our vision- unity. We believe that we are only as strong as we are united and that real change can only happen when we celebrate our differences and come together for the sake of the orphans and children in need that we’re raising money for.
Since its inception in 2003 by a London university student, charity week has now raised over £10.8 million. Each year, charity week selects 4 main projects around the world to fund. These projects are selected on a need basis, which means that countries with less media coverage and lesser known crises get the life-saving support they so urgently need. One of the projects we’re funding this year is heart surgery due to take place this year for 60 refugee children in Syria and Lebanon, where extreme poverty has tripled this year alone. We’re also funding medical services in Palestine for children, education for street children in the Philippines, Pakistan, Nigeria and Iraq as well as the provision of emergency relief in Yemen, Somalia, Kosovo and Sri Lanka.
The campaign isn’t just unique to Southampton ISOC- almost every other university (and even some colleges, communities, secondary and primary schools) in the UK and even worldwide take part, with charity week now operating in 7 countries, including the USA, Canada, Ireland, Germany, Qatar and South Africa, amounting to almost 400 separate institutions.
In previous years the ISOC has held numerous in person fundraising activities such as bake sales and dinners. As a largely events-based campaign, COVID presented us with our biggest challenge yet and meant we had to reconsider our fundraising approach and re-conceptualise our charity week entirely. This involved transforming some of our more traditional events into online versions, such as quiz nights, henna nights and even hosting our dinner/auction over zoom, raising almost £10k in one night! We also introduced some new events such as virtual escape rooms, murder mystery nights and a live stream in collaboration with Exeter and Medway ISOCs, which ran until midnight on banking deadline day. Raising all this money would not have been possible without our amazing ISOC members who created individual fundraising pages and went above and beyond even in a pandemic.
We couldn’t be prouder of everyone who got involved- every contribution both big and small has allowed us to make history in the year of COVID and raise our largest total ever of £31,232 here at Southampton, and a record-breaking total of over £1.4 million globally! While COVID has certainly presented its challenges, it’s also taught us a lot and allowed us to truly participate in and unite with so many other institutions which took part in charity week.
We won’t stop just because Charity Week is over- we are continuing our charitable efforts throughout the year, and are currently in the process of establishing our very own community outreach branch in addition to our upcoming ‘Believe and Do Good’ campaign, which will take place in February 2021.
The key take away we hope everyone takes from this is that no matter how impossible things may seem and no matter what obstacles life throws our way, with a strong vision we can achieve anything we set our minds to and far exceed our own expectations!
For more information about the ISOC, please visit susu.org/groups/i-soc or find us on all social media platforms @southamptonisoc.
Tags: Charity Week, Fundraising, Islamic Society, ISOC