Muslim youth group raises more than £300,000 for UK charities
A Muslim youth organisation was praised in Parliament last week after raising more than £300,000 for UK charities, distributing 30,000 food parcels and planting 10,000 trees.
The Ahmadiyya Muslim Youth Association (AMYA) presented £340,000 raised in the last year to 45 charities at a House of Lords ceremony – bringing the group’s fundraising total to £1.5m since it was founded in 1989.
The British Heart Foundation received more than £16,000 from AMYA last week
Most of this year’s cash total was raised through the Mercy for Mankind challenge, which included a 10km charity run in Battersea Park, 5km run in Scotland and Three Peaks hike in Wales.
Charities to receive donations include the Royal British Legion, Barnado’s, NSPCC, British Heart Foundation and The Silver Line.
The Secretary of State for International Development, Justine Greening, praised the group’s charity work at a House of Lords ceremony on Thursday.
She said: “I’ll never forget the discussion around young people in the Ahmadiyya Community going as far afield as down to Devon to help people affected by the floods and closer to home in Surrey, helping people, just being part of that response to those crises I think told me a lot about just how a fantastic group of people they are and I think why it gives us so much hope as we look to the future.”
AMYA represents 8,000 young Muslims in the UK, with headquarters at the Southfields Mosque in Wandsworth and the Baitul Futuh Mosque in Morden.
The association’s numerous charity events have resulted in the donation of more than 6,000 pints of blood, the planting of more than 10,000 trees and the distribution of more than 30,000 food packs to the homeless.
‘A fantastic group of people’: Justine Greening praised AMYA in the House of Lords last week
National AMYA president Mirza Waqas Ahmad said: “Islam teaches us that we should be loyal to the country we reside in. It is through integrating the youth into their local communities and encouraging them to do good works that radicalisation can be eliminated.
“This event is a culmination of all the fundraising efforts of our youth throughout the year and the amount raised is a testament to their dedication