CISA win Best Society Event for highly successful Charity Week fundraiser
GCU Student’s Association recently held their annual STAR Awards – with 16 winners declared on a night of celebrating student success.
The award for Best Society Event was presented to the Caledonian Islamic Student’s Association (CISA) for their highly successful Charity Week event – a week long fundraiser which included six different activities.
Charity Week is an international unity project that brings people together across the world to fundraise for orphans and children worldwide. Working alongside other Scottish universities, the students helped to organise events including ‘5k Challenge’, ‘Call-a-Cupcake’, ‘Scotland’s Inter-Society Auction Night’, ‘Brothers Gaming Night’, ‘Sisters Fusion Night’ and ‘Selection Boxes Bake Sale’.
We spoke to members of CISA about how they feel to have won the award:
Firstly, how do you feel about winning the award for Best Society Event?
Vice President & Head Brother Aadam Razak: “CISA are thankful for being awarded Best Society Event, from changing our massive re-structure of our event style; to online and in-person events, tea/coffee stalls around the campus, games nights, Sisters High Tea and bucketing on the streets of Glasgow whilst raising funds for the needy.
CISA would not have had a fantastic Charity Week without the Muslim brothers and sisters at GCU and the committee for planning each event to better adapt to the online stage. We have had some great successes this year including the Call-A-Cupcake from Little Bakers, the Sisters Fusion night and the Brothers games night. We appreciate that our events are given a spotlight for this award.”
Why did you all decide to fundraise for Charity Week?
CISA Marketer Maaria Aziz: “Charity Week was about coming together as a team and using our collective efforts to raise as much money as possible, which was used for important and life-changing projects for orphans and needy children across the world.
Some of these projects included heart surgery and medical services for refugee children in Syria and Palestine, and also education for street children and orphans in Pakistan, Nigeria and Philippines. The vision for Charity Week was that we are stronger together rather than apart, and Islam also highlights the importance of Unity. Our Prophet (Pbuh) said, “Verily, the believers are like a structure, each part strengthening the other,” and the Prophet clasped his fingers together. [al-Bukhari].”
How did you all come up with the big list of events for the week?
Vice President & Head Sister Nurin Johar: “As a team, we started to brainstorm and plan for the events few weeks before the Charity Week, and divided the tasks for available committee member to take part.
Although the approach for this year was different due to lockdown restrictions and online learning, we’ve made creative adjustments to carry out the events in the best possible and engaging manner as we could, for anybody from different parts of the country or international to join.”
The Charity Week was very successful despite being online. Do you think CISA will take part next year (maybe even hold in person events?)
Marketer and new CISA President Sohaib Saleem: “Whether we are online or back on campus, we will still continue to be a part of Charity Week and be part of the wonderful events and experiences that Charity Week entails.
With Charity Week being online this time around, we have been able to engage and unify with people from all over the world to participate in Charity Week and raise as much money as possible.
As the next CISA president, I will do my best to ensure Charity Week continues to grow, develop and improve from the previous years as well as get more people (or maybe other societies!) involved for the Common Good.”
Find out more about CISA on their Facebook page
By Rachael McAlonan
Got a SCEBE or GSBS story? Email me at Rachael.McAlonan@gcu.ac.uk or connect with me on social media here