The Thaakat Insider | Volume 1, Issue 5

8/2/2019 The Thaakat Insider | Volume 1, Issue 5

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A Social Media Campaign #lethedreambe’ 

If you’ve been

around any form of 

social media lately,

Thaakat’s name has

 been tied with this

hash tag. You may be

 wondering what it’s about so

here is the 411.

There is a village outside of 

Karachi, Pakistan in which

lies one of the largest garbage

dumps of the city. Amongst

this trash and smoke, there

 were villagers of Kachra

Kundi, running a primary 

school. Thaakat’s goal has

since then become to build alarge school site, away from

all this pollution. We have 9

classrooms built in partner-

ship with Idara Al Khair, but

need the resources to run this

school site. The cost to get

each of the nine classrooms

started is $1,200, and an ad-

ditional $5,600 for clean wa-

ter ($16,400 in total).

Here’s the scoop from the

Creative Director, Faizan

Zaidi (FZ) and the Project

Manager, Aarish Mustafa

(AM).

Q: What was your inspiration

 behind the project?

FZ: “I visited Kachra Kundi

last year and after seeing themisery there I couldn’t help

myself but to start an initia-

tive for these kids. Being a

design student, I wanted to

give the campaign a fresh

look, which would attract

the attention of the masses.” 

 AM: “If helping change the

fortunes of a community 

living in a garbage disposal was not reason enough, my 

upbringing provided more. I

had the privilege of attend-

ing a highly regarded and

expensive private school

(Foundation Public School)

 when I lived in Karachi. Had

it not been for my mom

teaching at the same school,

my family most likely could

Featured in this

issue:

1

2

2

3

4

4

Check out these

websites:

[The Thaakat Insider]

Dare to Dream

not have afforded

the cost of sending

me there, and nei-

ther could the vast

majority of the

population.” 

Q: What advice do you havefor others wishing to start a

new initiative?

FZ: If you believe in some-

thing, just go out and do it.

 While doing so, you will often

have this instinct that you

 won’t succeed but you have to

 just keep going and pushing

 yourself. The first step is the

hardest. Believe in yourself andthe sky is the limit.

 AM: Taking that first step and

getting involved with some-

thing you really have a passion

for is often the most difficult

part. Once you take that first

step, you will be surprised to

learn on what you can accom-

plish and how many people

have that same passion as you.

Mr. Mazahir, the pioneer of 

Kachra Kundi, is a great role

model to have as he showed

that you do not need to have all

the wealth or accomplishments

in the world to make an impact

that will last generations.

Go here to donate now! 

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The donor that matched

for Andrew, will be donat-

ing her marrow for An-

drew on May 16th and An-

drew will have his trans-

plant the next day, God

 willing.

 While Andrew has found a

match, he still has to go

through rounds of chemo-

therapy to ensure he goes

into the transplant cancer

free.

Please continue to keep

 Andrew in your prayers

and here's to hoping to see

The Illini Thaakat Founda-

tion (ITF) held a bone mar-

row registration earlier in

March and registered over

200 people for the “Be the

Match”.

The great news to come

from this? Andrew Park,

the teenage student that the

team was campaigning for,

FOUND A MATCH!

Now there is still a long way 

to go in Andrew’s journey to

 battle cancer but this is a

HUGE leap!

him in full health out of the

hospital soon!

Only 2% of the population is

on the National Bone Mar-

row Registry. If you have

thought about joining thecause, read more on the Na-

tional Bone Marrow Dona-

tion Program website. The

process is as easy as 1-2-3

and you could give back hope

to those that have lost it.

To read more of Andrew’s

story and stay updated with

him, visit his blog here. 

Chapter Highlight: Thaakat Houston

Andrew Park, Tougher Than Cancer 

Page 2

The University of Houston

Thaakat has been quite the

active campus chapter this

past year.

On March 3rd, UH Thaakat

partnered with their MSA to

hold a “5K Walkathon: Walk 

Like a Cougar”. This fund-

raiser was beyond successful

and the team raised around

$5200 for the Plumy’nut

Campaign.

Earlier in 2011, Thaakat part-

nered with Plumpy’nut to

raise awareness and funds formalnutrition in children in

 Africa. UH Thaakat’s fund-

raiser will be able to provide

food for children in East Af-

rica suffering from malnutri-

tion. Great work, team!

This school year, Thaakat

Houston was also involved in

holding a Bone Marrow Drive,

signing up a ton of individuals

on the registry to potentially  be a match.

If all that wasn’t

enough to keep the

team busy, they held

multiple fundraiser

Bake Sales, partici-

pated in the “Mr. UH

Competition” as well

as in a Walk to Stop

Diabetes.

The entire UH Thaakat

team has made us proud

and I asked President

Maha Ali Khan to share a

few words. Here is what

she had to say:

“The advice I would give to

other chapters in regards to

holding successful events

 would be to always remem-

 ber to allow your team to

enjoy what they do and

always market A LOT! To

keep the chapter going

strong, always make sure

there is some sort of word/

activity about Thaakat go-

ing on whether it's by word-of-mouth or random Face-

 book posts or

events.

 We have a major

 bone marrow 

drive coming up

this month for

my friend'scousin. We are

doing it at the

Indian Student

 Association's

talent show which is one of 

the biggest talent shows on

campus.”

 We look forward to hearing

about more successful

events so keep up the great

 work, and continue to makeus proud!!

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Charity Starts at Home… But it Doesn’t Stop There 

Page 3Volume 1: Issue 5

By: Puja Patel, Diversity Council

Ever since I became a part of 

Thaakat, I have read all the

 blog posts on the WordPress

site, all the Thaakat articles in

Urdu Times, and all the

statuses on our Facebook fan

page . However, I have never

 been on the other end – I

have never written anything

for Thaakat. Part of the reason

I never wrote an article is be-

cause I can write long boring

research papers or historical

papers that can put someone

to sleep within few minutes,

 but I cannot write a creative

article. So, why am I writing

all of a sudden? Well, I was

inspired by a 15-year-old. But

 before I get into that, here is a

little insight into my relation-

ship with Thaakat.

It was the end of my second

 year as a high school teacher.

I did not want another sum-

mer to go by that I felt was a

 waste. I figured why not do

 what I have wanted to for a

long time – work for a non-

profit that I can be fully in-

 volved in. So as usual, I

reached out to Google forhelp. After some intense re-

search on nonprofits, I came

across the Thaakat Founda-

tion. I emailed Thaakat and

got a response within a day.

Uzma Bawany Ali, the foun-

der of Thaakat, offered to

meet with me to tell me more

about Thaakat and what it

stands for. After the meet-

ing, she asked me to think 

about whether or not I

 wanted to join and to de-

cide how I wanted to help.

 After I met her, there was

no doubt that I wanted to

help. It is rare to come

across someone like Uzma

 who is so passionate about

helping out where the need

is most – to not think 

about race, nationality, be-liefs, age, religion…. to just

think about how she can

reach out to them.

I have been inspired by 

quite a few people in my 

life, one being Uzma. I

know that there are many 

other people that will in-

spire me in the future as

 well. However, I never

thought that I would be

inspired by one of my stu-

dents – a student that has

cursed at me, started fights

in my classroom, and then

 walked out. Today, he came

to me and said, “Yo, Miss!!!

Did you watch that K..O…

N..Y.. video? I want to do-

nate a dollar for that.” I was

quite embarrassed that I

did not know what video he

 was talking about. I knew of 

Kony, but was clueless

about the video. This stu-

dent who has never stepped

out of New York City, who

knows very little about cur-

rent events wanted to reach

out to people that he has no

relation to. It took me about

six months to finally gethim engaged in a class – 

and this one video moti-

 vated him within thirty 

minutes.

His desire to reach out

strengthened my beliefs and

 what I know Thaakat stands

for: crossing social bounda-

ries to help the ones in need

and to raise awareness. A 15

-year-old who faces aca-

demic challenges, who is

from a low income family,

and who is constantly under

pressure from gang mem-

 bers wants to help out kids

on another continent. So,

 why can’t an adult who has

a stable family, who is well

educated, and who lives in

a safe community, reach

out to a person that does

not share any similarity 

 with him or her except for

the fact that they are hu-

man?

 We have been a part of the

globalization process for

centuries – so then why do

 we still want to keep our-

selves separated? I am notsaying that we shouldn’t

reach out to people that we

can relate to… but why 

stop helping just there?

Rather, I am saying we

may be able to form a rela-

tion between ourselves and

others if we reach out to

someone based on need

and not solely on back-

ground.

Moving forward I will be

 writing about my other

inspirations….The Thaakat

chapters that have reached

out to so many across the

country and the world…

reached out to people that

they have never met.

Through my experiencesand through the experi-

ences of the chapters, I can

truly say that even if we

may never meet an indi-

 vidual we have helped, we

have formed a connection

 with them that cannot be

described in words. 

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Nonprofit Spotlight: Connections for the Homeless

on its website, Connections offers

four main programs: homelessness

prevention (which helps people in

precarious financial situations),

housing services, employment ser-

 vices, and outreach/supportive ser-

 vices.

Furthermore, Connections’ transi-

tional shelter, Hilda’s Place, is al-

 ways looking for volunteers to pro-

 vide meals for their clients.

In the Chicago and Evanston

areas, several community 

groups volunteer regularly  with the organization.

It is a sad truth that on the

North Shore, about 10,000

people on the North Shore

 who are one paycheck away 

from being homeless,

(Originally published by Hira T. Khan, Keeper 

of the Blog. See the full article here) 

If you’ve read my last post, it will

come as no surprise that homeless-

ness is an issue close to my heart. In

this day and age, we would hope that

homelessness would be a thing of the

past, but in fact, wealth disparities

are growing wider and wider. The

rich are becoming richer, and the

poor are becoming poorer. In sad

circumstances like these, we desper-

ately need nonprofit organizations

like Connections for the Homeless.

Connections for the Homeless is an

organization based in Evanston, Illi-

nois that is devoted to ending home-

lessness on the North Shore.

Founded in 1984, Connections is still

 young , but it has accomplished

much in its short life. As described

Thaakat Rutgers Newark: Held their Hoops for Edu-cation” event to benefit“Darkness to Light”, an in-dependent school project,in Larkana, Pakistan.

Thaakat TCNJ: Planningunderway for some new events!

Thaakat UIC: Raised $1000

for “Dreams for KachraKundi” through Thaakatmeets Inferno fundraiser.

What’s New With Thaakat Chapters Around the Nation 

Thaakat Atlanta:  “Swagthe Swab” Bone Marrow Drive on April 2nd & 3rd

Thaakat Baruch: Planningunderway for some new events!

Thaakat Bradley: Planningunderway for some new events!

Thaakat Florida: Partici-

pated in their on campusRelay For Life .

Thaakat Houston:  Raised

$4500 during their 5K  Walk-a-Thon for Plum-py’nut.

Illini Thaakat:  Held somereally successful bone mar-row drives last month!

Thaakat Loyola: Leadingefforts to obtain a new  board on campus!

Northwestern University Thaakat:  Planningunderway for somenew events!

Thaakat RutgersNew Brunswick:  Had a very successful“Live, Laugh, &Learn” comedy &talent show!

and of those people, 2,000 will ex-

perience homelessness this year.

 Almost half of them will be chil-

dren.

But Connections has done some

great work in the arena of home-

lessness! The organization serves

over 1,000 people who are home-

less or at risk of becoming homeless

and mobilizes a force of over 800

 volunteers every year to join the

fight against

homelessness.

Check out Con-

nections’ website

to learn more

about how you

can join the fight

to end homeless-

ness once and for

all!

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