A group of children from a Bradford madrassa handed over a cheque worth more than £3,000 to charity last week, after undertaking a number of fundraising activities over Ramadan.
Clement’s Gate Madrassa, located inside Lister Mills, currently cares for around 50 children in two separate after-school classes from Monday to Thursday every week.
Throughout the Islamic holy month, the youngsters were tasked with raising funds for a cause they had chosen and after much deliberation, it was people in Nepal and Africa who were selected to benefit from the funds.
After two weeks of sponsored challenges – ranging from half-day fasts to giving up sweets or television for a week, alongside bake and toy sales, a total of £3,020 was raised.
Shafeen Majid is manager at Clement’s Gate and helps spearhead the fundraising campaign every year in aid of a different charity. This year, the Penny Appeal was chosen as it supports both Africa and Nepal, with the cheque handover taking place last week on Thursday 9th July.
“It was a fantastic day and the children have done amazingly well to raise so much money,” Ms Majid said.
“From the day they selected their causes, they have overseen the fundraisers and we never imagined that they would be able to raise so much money.
“Initially we were just going to hold a bake sale once a week, but their enthusiasm resulted in them bringing things in every day. There were certainly some busy mums over the past couple of weeks.”
On Thursday, during the handover event, the class were joined by guest speaker, Sonam Bahalla.
Sonam has recently returned from Nepal and spoke of the devastating impact the two earthquakes have had on the country, reinforcing the importance of the fundraising the children had undertaken.
“To see the children responding to Sonam was lovely,” Ms Majid added. “They got to hear about where the money they had raised was going and that only helped inspire them even more.”
The cheque was presented to Penny Appeal representative, Khalil Benkhalil, who praised the efforts of all the children, and explained who would benefit from the funds.
“Our motto at Penny Appeal is ‘small change big difference’ and these children have done their small change and more,” he said.
“The money they raised will supply meals to people in Africa through our ‘feed our world’ project. In Nepal it will help shelter the homeless, feed the hungry, and hydrate the thirsty.”
He added: “For the kids to raise so much money not only empowers them but the community and we saw how much they cared for the two causes.”
