Challenging your problem solving skills to accept failure.
An activity to collect funds for Edhi Foundation
“I can accept failure, everyone fails at something. But I can’t accept not trying.” Michael Jordan.
The biggest mistake people do, is to think that successful people are just lucky or they never experienced failure. Many of them or I should say nearly every one of them must have experienced failure at certain part of their life or in their journey towards success and they overcame their failure to be known to us as “successful people”.
Failure is generally the best teacher in life. The one’s who learn to how overcome failure become stronger. We all confront failure but the only difference is how we deal with it.
Edhi Foundation
The Edhi Foundation is a non-profit social welfare organization based in Pakistan. It was founded by Abdul Sattar Edhi in 1951, who served as the head of the organization until his death on, 8 July 2016. The Edhi Foundation provides 24-hour emergency assistance across the entirety of Pakistan and internationally. The Foundation provides, among many other services, shelter for the destitute, free hospitals and medical care, drug rehabilitation services, and national and international relief efforts. (Source: Wikipedia)
Activity (Funds Collection)
As, the demise of the great Abdul Sattar Edhi Sb and lock down during COVID-19 had resulted in the decline of funds and donations to Edhi foundation. So, we started a project with Amal Academy to play our role in the collection of donations for Edhi foundation.
It was a pious activity but, it had great challenges for us to overcome in order to complete this project. We confronted many restrictions due to lock down but we used the opportunities we had to make the best use of our time. Failure seemed a part of this journey as many people refused to believe our motive and saw it as a scam.
On the other hand, we also found some of our family members and friends very positive and helpful as they not only provided funds but actually helped to share our motive further.
Experience
It was a phenomenal experience as it challenged many of our skills for example: communication skills, convincing power, time management etc. It all started from starting a social network campaign and then asking our families and social network to help in our objective. Our families and friends played a great part in helping and supporting this idea. Without their support it would have been a tough job.
It was a difficult job for some of our members, as going out and meeting strangers to convince them about a social cause was a challenging task but with their determination and grit they pulled it off and did a wonderful job.
For the first, we perceived different mind sets on the same cause showing how people think. It was a mixed response both positive and negative but overall we enjoyed this activity as it enhanced many of our skills and gave a great boost of confidence.
How we carried out this activity?
It was an individual job owing to lock down and the fact that we belonged to different cities. But, the mindset behind this activity was the same, that is to contribute and to use ourselves the most for a better cause. We used social network to reach out to our distant friends and strangers. The response through social media was disappointing but at least we gave it a shot.
Challenges we faced and how we overcame those challenges?
The biggest challenge we faced was to convince people that it is just cause and it is purely a non-profit work. They put up many questions like: why you?, or how you entered this field? etc. But, we tried our best to convince them and offered to show proof and receipt of the donations.
Another challenge was that many people we reached out to said that they are not in a state to donate something because, they are unemployed or they are barely meeting both ends due to lock down. They said, they will donate when they are again employed or in a good state and we had to agree with them.
How this experience helped us to accept failure?
We faced many situations in which we could not do anything and had just to accept the fact that we have to move forward, identify where we lacked in convincing someone and hope for the best next time.
We also had sent messages in our family and friends groups to help us in this cause but many of the people did not even care to reply or appreciate our step. Definitely, it left us thinking for moment that how we are going to complete this project when even our closest friends are ignoring us. But, then we had accept the fact that, not all fingers are the same and hope for the best on our next step.
Pictures really would have made this even more memorable but as this was mostly internet and social network based work, we could not arrange original pictures and also, many people requested anonymity.
I would like to appreciate all the members of Circle 1 for their hard work and passion towards social development and wish to see more in the future.
In the end, we would like to pay our sincere regards and salute Edhi foundation and all the organizations who are working day and night to make this world a better place.
As Abdul Sattar Edhi Sb said,
Empty words and long praises do not impress God. Show Him your faith by your deeds.