The Rucksack Challenge
Supporting in the Warm Heart's Campaign -
25 February 2015
To start off 2015, we wanted our project to focus on the struggles that people who are homeless have to go through, especially during harsh weather. This is when we stumbled upon Muslim Aid's Warm Hearts Campaign. The campaign's aim is to combat poverty and social isolation, with the goal to not just save lives of people dying from the effects of the cold, but also to help others build a support network, in order to liberate them from social isolation. Muslim Aid estimate 30,000 people in the UK die from the effects of the winter chill. We wanted to help Muslim Aid put an end to these preventable deaths.
We partnered up with a YouTuber known as 'Just Humnah Bird' and signed up for the Rucksack Challenge. So, what is the Rucksack Challenge? The Rucksack Challenge is one of the ways Muslim Aid invites you to help make a change to these people’s lives. It calls upon you to make your own rucksacks filled with basic essentials and then passing your rucksack on to a homeless person to "share the warmth". After signing up, we were all given sporks by Muslim Aid to help start us off on our challenge. We packed our rucksacks with warm fleeces; woolly hats, thick gloves and
socks, then tied a sleeping bag to the rucksack. In addition to this, we filled the rest of the rucksack with yummy treats, easy open tinned food and some bottled water. We located a homeless hostel called 'Grow' and donated our rucksacks to the current residents.
We were kindly welcomed by Grow and arranged an open discussion with the residents, where we introduced ourselves and explained why we have donated them our rucksacks. We had a very open, engaging conversation with them and they were very much charming gentlemen. It was a great opportunity meeting them as they described their different background stories and to be able to witness how much enthusiasm they have to get out there and be more proactive. Some of the residents have kindly volunteered to share their stories with us so In sha Allah (God Willing) we will be uploading them to our website soon. We very much appreciated the welcoming hospitality from Grow Hostel and will definitely be working with them again in the future. Participating in the Rucksack Challenge was a very insightful experience however, we didn’t stop there.
We went a step further. We wanted to see these rucksacks distributed to a wider audience. Pious Projects went to a restaurant in Ilford called 'China Grill', whom every Thursday generously hands out free food to the homeless between 6:00pm - 8:00pm. Muslim Aid partnered up with China Grill with their aim to distribute the rucksacks on one of these evenings at the restaurant. We went as volunteers to help Muslim aid give out these rucksacks. As the local homeless community lined up to collect their meal, we organised all the rucksacks and displayed them on a table. When we explained that the rucksacks were for them, their faces lit up with gleam. It was truly heart-warming seeing them smile and laugh, watching them walk away with happiness, with hope. We truly engaged with them sharing laughter and stories with each other, leaving the
evening as a definite eye opener to anyone who may have not understood the situations that these people go through daily. It's amazing how one rucksack and a sleeping bag can literally change some one’s life.
That evening, we handed out over 60 complete rucksacks and the rest of the rucksacks went to another branch for them to distribute. Even though the evening went really well and In sha Allah (God Willing) we helped them the best that we could, this mission isn't over. There are still thousands of people out there suffering from poverty for different reasons. We need to take a stand and break away from poverty. Why not get involved in or donate to campaigns and projects such as the Warm Heart's Campaign and help change these people's lives for the better.
Overall, this was an amazing experience for us and we thank Muslim Aid, Just Humnah Bird and Grow Hostel for being a part of it. Thank you.
Pious Projects