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Imran Khan ki Pukaar raised £250,000 for the flood victims of Pakistan in Manchester
By Imran Ghazali
(London Dec 04) - Imran Khan Flood Relief (IKFR) UK held one of the most successful charity dinner's since its launch in the UK on November 27 2010 at the Sheridan Suite in Manchester UK in partnership with MKR Foundation and under the banner of Pukaar. The charity dinner was attended by 1200 people and raised £250k in one night.
The event started with the comperes of the evening, Mani and Noreen inviting Miss Nisha Rafiq for a presentation on the floods. This was followed by the Talawat Quran Pak by Beg Saab and then an address by Baroness Sayeeda Warsi. Baroness Warsi commented on the amount of corruption in Pakistan and said that the Pakistani government and Pakistanis should focus on helping the flood victims. The Lord Mayor of Manchester, Mark Hackett also expressed his support for IKFR's efforts to help the flood victims. Next came Ms Rabia Zia (IKFR UK) who welcomed and thanked all the guests including Baroness Warsi, MEP Sajjad Karim, Lord Mayor of Manchester Mark Hackett and others. She also thanked all the sponsors & donors. Key sponsors of the event were: Asian Sound Radio, Domino Pizza, X Events, Kenwright & Cox, Lincolns Group of Colleges, Magic East, Sheffield Live, Oriana, Asian Leader, Mashriq Britannia, Spectrum Productions, Beauty Gul. The raffle donors were Skylord Travels, Royal Travels Manchester, East Z East, Imani Fashion House & Je Roche. Ms Zia told the guests of the work being done by IKFR in the UK and the funds collected so far that amount to approximately £950k. After the dinner, there was a short video showing the progress of IKFR in Pakistan.
Mr Imran Khan was then invited to the stage to address the audience. Mr Khan welcomed the Lord Mayor Manchester & Baroness Sayeeda Wasri. Mr Khan said that he feels that in the years to come, Baroness Warsi will play an important role in politics of Britain & will make a huge difference in politics here for the Pakistani communities. Mr Khan also thanked Aneel Mussarat, Nabeel Mussarat as well as Rabia Zia and team for making the evening a huge success. Mr Khan provided an update on the latest situation in Pakistan. Mr Khan explained that the floods have affected approximately 22 million and there was a need for immediate relief & rehabilitation as people had lost everything overnight and were without food. He said that on 28th of July, I happened to be in Mianwali and Mianwali was the place where we saw the fury of the River Indus and the flood. There were floating buffalos and cows & people trying to save themselves from the rising waters. I remember looking at these people & their state of shock. Anyone of you would be in a state of shock if you had woken up and suddenly you had lost everything. These were the villages who were dependent upon their animals, their livestock & their piece of land - which all drowned overnight. Overnight one saw these people left with nothing. Thus the great challenge is not just the immediate relief but also the rehabilitation so that these people can stand on their own feet. So all the money collected today will be for the reconstruction of the villages that have been devastated. It has been estimated that about 2000 villages that have been destroyed. We have taken responsibility for 100 villages and the more money we get the more villages we will try and help.
Mr Khan said that IKFR's number 1 priority is to get the seeds to as many people as possible before the 1st week of December so that they can sow their wheat crop. IKFR has taken the responsibility of providing seeds to 200,000 families. He said that the government is doing whatever we can expect the government to do given that it is not the most competent nor the most honest government in our history. The other focus for IKFR is to reconstruct the villages and make the villages better than they were before. We are doing this by partnering with various experts & NGOs for example, the Citizen Foundation Schools to rebuild schools, the Orangi pilot project Karachi to build sewage system, Akoovat for micro-finance at zero percent etc. He explained that 90% of Pakistan does not have a sewage system & these villages, for the first time will have sewage system which means that we will prevent a lot of diseases in Pakistan year. We will not be building the the houses for the flood victims, we will be providing them with the architects & material. They will build their own houses.
Mr Khan explained that whatever money people donate, we can guarantee that the money will go towards the flood victims. There are various NGOs operating in Pakistan, for every pound you give them, over 50p goes in their administration cost. However every pound that you give IKFR, less than 2% will go towards administration costs. He said that in Pakistan it is a time of great change. These floods have changed Pakistan. People have felt that the government was not equipped to help the flood victims & all institutions that were meant to help the people of Pakistan during the crisis were absent - they failed the people. All major politicians & political parties that wanted to raise money including the Prime Minister's and the President's appeal failed to attract any money from the foreign governments & donors. He said that this crisis is a bigger crisis than the earthquake in Haiti or the earthquake in Pakistan in 2006 or the Tsunami. In the next six months the whole impact of the floods will be felt in Pakistan.
Mr Khan also touched upon Hillary Clinton's remarks on why should the American tax payer subsidize or help the people in Pakistan, when Pakistan's elite does not pay taxes. He said that our party has been raising the issue of non payment of taxes for the last 14 years but it is the first time that we see the media in Pakistan questioning all major politicians about their taxes considering that one of our political leaders who has 3 billion dollars assets has only paid 5,000 rupees in taxes. The people of Pakistan are demanding a change. The floods have made people realize that unless we change the country and unless the rich people pay taxes, we cannot survive. Approximately 80% of taxes are indirect. Indirect taxes causes inflation. Inflation means more and more people falling under the poverty line. These floods have woken up the people of Pakistan. Mr Khan ended his speech with a quote by Charles Dickens on the French Revolution, It is the worst of times and it is the best of times. Worst of times because sometimes you think, things cant get any worse, but best of times because someone like me, who is travelling all over Pakistan can see a beginning of a new era, a new Pakistan.
This was followed by a short Q&A session after which Choudhry Saeed and Ms Zia announced the donors / sponsors who had pledged donations for the flood victims. As the donations were being announced, a huge number of dinner guests started coming to the stage to give further donations / pledges directly to Mr Khan. Jeff Mirza joined Mr Khan for the auction and the Raffle. After the Raffle, Ash King entertained the guests followed by Ataulah Khan Essa Khelvi. Mr Khan, before leaving especially went to meet with Ataulah Khan Essa Khelvi. The evening ended with a last performance by a very talented artist, Ms Rani Taj.
We would like to thank all the volunteers who made this event a success starting with Fatima Gul, Khazeema Beg, Kabir Sidhu, Shams Khwaja, Ch Shahzad, Fraz Anjum, Saad Gul, Ali Khar, Mehr Choudhary, Dr Raana, Aqib Dar, Atif Chaudhary, Khurram Naeem, Zaid Ansari, Sobia Zia, Faheem Ajmal, Rabia Khan, Sarah Yasir, Usman Anwar, Nisha Rafiq, Mujtaba Hassan, Rahael Akram, Ali Khalid, Zeeshan Samad, Sahibzada Yusuf, Hassan Munj, Khaldoon Khan, Taymoor Arshad, Shams-ul-Hassan, Qasim Raja, Taiba Butt, Ahsan Bhattia, Zain Multan, Anas, Amar Ilyas, Amir Azhar, Amir Chishti, Iman Zia, Anoushey Choudhary, Aneela Sattar, Hassan Aslam, Adnan Tariq, Sohaib Mahmood, Muhammad Haroon, Shehzad Baig, Aurangzeb Nasir, Sameena Beg, Muhammad Qasim, Daniyaal. We would also like to thank GEO for their coverage & to Naveed Choudhry for the flood video. A special thanks to Dar, Anjum, Choudhry Arshad, Aneel Choudhry, Nabeel Choudhry, Choudhry Saeed and Sultan for their help & support.
