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Wednesday, December 1, 2010

Morial Shah and the Pakistan Flood Relief Task Force at Georgetown

Morial Shah is a student at Georgetown University who started the Pakistan Flood Relief Task Force. Shah was in Pakistan when massive flooding broke out and helped to organize relief efforts on the ground. She has continued her work while attending school at Georgetown University this fall, never missing an opportunity to bring light to the often ignored crisis in Pakistan.


To read Morial Shah's blog please click here.

Here is a message from Morial telling about some of the work of the Task Force:

Since we were not an official student group with our own finances, we had to operate with the help of other student groups and raise funds at events which could be potentially changed into fundraisers. So, for instance, we worked with the Muslim Student Association (MSA) to convert it's preplanned fast-a-thon into a Pakistan fundraiser, the South Asian Society (SAS) for a Pakistan Fall Dinner, UNICEF- Georgetown's spotlight dinner into a Pakistan spotlight dinner, etc. Hence, while you will find links to most our fundraising events on our facebook page, you will find that the events were created by other student organizations (because they were providing funds and we were cosponsoring).

Here are some links you might find helpful:

Pakistani Ambassador Disappointed by Ignorance

UNICEF Raises Money For Pakistan Flood Victims

Students Gather for Panel on Pakistan Floods

To recap: we facilitated four fundraisers :

1) UNICEF spotlight dinner on Sept 29
2) SAS fall dinner for Pakistan on Oct 22
3) MSA fast-a-thon for Pakistan on Oct 21
4)Hindu Student Association Garba night on Oct 8.

In addition, we collaborated Shannon Grewer from Locke Lord and Bissel, Deepak Parwani, a Pakistani designer, and students from GW, to help advertise and volunteer to organize a 'Fashion for Pakistan fundraiser' at Ambassador Haqqani's house on Nov 16

Fashion helps Flood Victims at Pakistan Embassy
Flood victims need greater US support: Haqqani

Five academic events:
1) IRC, UNICEF and Task Force's panel on Oct 7,
2) SAS and Task Force academic panel on Oct 20,
3) Asian Studies department's lecture with Mark Wald on Oct 13 (marketing and publicity help)
4) MSFS panel on Pakistan on Nov 4 (marketing and publicity help)
5) Ambassador Haqqani's lecture at Georgetown on Nov 15

Plus, we had four bake sales (three with the help of Georgetown's Rotaract Club and one with the help of UNICEF) and a Saxby's week for Pakistan in collaboration with UNICEF Georgetown.

Morial Shah

Visit the Facebook page of the task force