Forty-year-old Nadeem Malik from Bradford has had an insanely successful month of fundraising this Ramadan, after selling over 5,000 chocolate fudge cakes in order to raise money for the Kashmir Orphan Relief Trust (KORT).
Nadeem and a team of 15 others began delivering cakes to doorsteps across the region, selling them for £10 each.
Soon enough, the money was rolling in and before they knew it, the team had raised £52,365.25 for the orphans at KORT.
Nadeem said: “I took the whole month off work to see this through. The team didn’t think we’d reach the target. We thought we’d reach around £20,000.
“We feel like we could have raised even more with the right help. We didn’t plan it and it would be better if there was some more organisation.”
Nadeem will be doing it all over again for the same charity next year as all the money goes directly to the cause.
KORT is a non-profit charity organisation that provides food, shelter, clothing, medical care and education for almost 200 orphans, including children who were orphaned by the devastating earthquake of 2005 and the floods of 2010.
On 8th October 2005, a huge earthquake struck Azad Kashmir at around 9am as children studied at school.
The powerful tremor killed over 100,000 people and changed the lives of millions forever.
After witnessing the events unfold in the media, a group of friends led by Bradford born Ch Mohammed Akhtar, travelled to the region of Azad Jammu and Kashmir on the 14th of October 2005 with over £100,000 worth of aid.
The group realized that there was a greater need for long term support of the children orphaned by the Earthquake and KORT was established.
The money that has been raised from Nadeem’s team’s cake sale will go towards the second phase of construction work at the school, including building a girl’s hostel – which at its peak will accommodate up to 500 orphan girls.
The construction of the boy’s hostel, the medical centre and the dental clinic will follow.
