Project Reform
On Monday 30th April 2018, a team of students participating in the ‘Legacy’ program hosted a charity dinner to raise money and awareness for the homeless. ‘Legacy’ is an optional project offered by the school in year 12 as a way for students to give back to their community and allows them to focus on developing a social action project to combat a local issue of their choice. The team had previously done bake sales within school, which proved incredibly successful.
‘Project Reform,’ hosted a successful fundraising evening at the award winning restaurant ‘Eurasia,’ which is owned by Shamim Haque, the father of one of the team members, Abdul Haque. Award winning Chef Amjad Ali (crowned the best in Indian cuisine with the Tommy Miah Best Chef Award), served a special menu to all guests that evening – the food was one of the best the students had ever tasted.
The evening began with all students arriving at the venue and greeted in a hospitable manner by all the staff; they made sure the students were comfortable, providing free drinks, and overall making the event a pleasant experience. Customers came from all over the West Midlands, ranging from Wolverhampton to Shropshire, and included guests of honour Mayor and Mayoress of Bridgnorth, Councillor Ron Whittle and Cllr. Mrs Carol Whittle. The people were incredibly generous in their donations, with local school ‘Brockton C of E Primary’ managing to raise £64 to support the cause. We received a great reception from the customers, who were eager to support the homeless as they often came over and talked to us about our project. Hannah Qadeer, Aadam Zaman and Abdul Haque went round to the different tables and managed to sell a great number of raffle tickets to the kind people of Bridgnorth. The first-place prize was a £40 voucher for the restaurant; second place a basket of chocolates and third place was an expensive bottle of champagne.
After starters had been served, Suhaib Hamad, Abdul Haque and team leader Britney Okhiria stood up to do a speech thanking the restaurant and its staff, while also spreading awareness about homelessness in a snappy two minutes. Donations were beginning to flood in from the guests with Mayor Whittle gifting the team £40. As people began to leave, they came round to thank us for the evening and expressed their support for our cause, eager to help us in any way possible. In total, the students managed to raise around £804.00 from the evening which will be used to provide care bags for one hundred homeless in Birmingham, providing them with the essential tools to survive.
A kind thank you would like to be given to ‘Eurasia’ for hosting the evening, and all the staff for providing a hospitable environment for the team. Thank you to David Masih and Shamim Haque for providing transport to and from the restaurant.
Project Reform Members: Britney Okhiria (Team Leader), Hannah Qadeer (Deputy Team Leader), Abdul Haque (Secretary), Aadam Zaman, Ibrahim Kabir, Samadul Chowdhry, Brandon Masih and Suhaib Hamad.
By:
Suhaib Hamad 12JST
