While millions of Pakistan’s flood victims celebrated Eid al-Fitr — the end of the holy month of Ramadan — at relief camps on Saturday, Pakistani students at Penn State U. are doing their part to contribute.
To help the flood victims, Yasar Awan, president of the Pakistani Student Association, said a fundraising dinner will be held at 6 p.m. Saturday in the Paul Robeson Cultural Center’s Heritage Hall.
Awan (senior-science) said tickets will be sold on the ground floor of the HUB-Robeson Center from Monday to Friday for $15.
The event will be catered by India Pavilion, and will include traditional dishes such as briyani , pita, curry and desserts, Awan said.
Awan said the funds raised from the dinner will be donated to UNICEF, a United Nations organization that works to help children and provide disaster relief.
Izzah Khan (freshman-English and public relations) said she witnessed how the flood damaged a large part of her country. When the flood hit the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa an area of northwest Pakistan, she was in Karachi, the southern region of the country, visiting her relatives.
Though her home in Karachi was not affected by the floods, Khan said she saw many students traveling around Pakistan to fundraise and deliver food donations in the wake of the disaster.
Khan said because of the flood, a lot of Pakistanis were not interested in celebrating the most important festival in the Islamic calendar — Eid al-Fitr. She said the festival is near equivalent to Christmas in the United States in terms of importance.
“A lot of people lost their homes — water is everywhere,” Khan said. “It is not a situation to celebrate Eid.”
The Pakistani government also urged its citizens to avoid festivities at Eid and tocelebrate it with simplicity, according to a press release issued Friday.
In a typical year Pakistanis would have started the morning with Eid prayer, Khan said, and then enjoyed the rest of the day with their relatives and friends.
But in the aftermath of the floods, no one is in much of a mood to celebrate, Khan said.
“This year’s Eid festival is being celebrated on such a moment of history, when a large part of country is under the devastation caused by pre-Ramadan floods,” Pakistan’s Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani said in a speech to his country. “Millions of fellow countrymen are homeless and facing severe difficulties.”
Khan said even those who choose not to attend the dinner can still help by donating money to help the flood victims.
“You went to a football game for $75 — you can definitely give $10 to save a life,” she said.
The worst floods in Pakistan’s history began in late July after a monsoon struck and swamped one-fifth of the country. The monsoon killed more than 1,700 people and left more than two million homeless, according the latest U.N. report.
Pakistan’s disaster officials have said the death toll is likely to rise “significantly” when the missing are accounted for.