The Afghan Students Association West, an organization created this past summer which consists of all college Afghan clubs across California, held a statewide clothing and supply drive to aid Afghanistan’s youth and families over the past few months.
The drive raised more than five tons of supplies and $2,000 in donations in a collective effort by Afghan clubs in the Northern and Southern California regions, said Salomon Hossein, UCLA United Afghan Club founder.
The drive, which began in late September, ended recently with a banquet and closing ceremony, celebrating its enormous success, Hossein said.
The Northern California drive ended on Nov. 25, he added.
Hossein said he envisioned planning a statewide supply drive after the UCLA Afghan Club held a smaller scale clothing drive to aid Afghanistan in the 2007-2008 academic year. He said he felt they could have done more.
Realizing he had friends in the University of California, California state universities, high schools and community colleges, he came up with the idea to have schools organize their own mini drives, with all of the supplies collected together in the end.
His family members and other supporters also helped collect supplies from their local high schools, middle schools, elementary schools and mosques.
“The (wearable) clothes are meant to aid those in Afghanistan, which is having some of its coldest winters in decades lately,” Hossein said. “The (new) school supplies are to help and encourage the youth whose families were too busy trying to survive and unable to send their kids to school.”
Organizers were stationed in various locations such as schools and homes, enabling both students and non-students to donate supplies. They handled their own storage, outreach and assistance.
Ariana Worldwide, a shipping company in Los Angeles, agreed to send the 400 boxes of supplies in Northern California for free.
A non-governmental organization, One World Hunger, which fights global AIDS and extreme poverty , gladly accepted to ship the 450 boxes of Southern California supplies, Hossein said.
“We were the first statewide drive, and we even convinced people to hold their own statewide drives in Ohio and Virginia after seeing how successful we were on Facebook,” he said.
Many Bruins participated in the drive, Hossein said, as UCLA won the competition for raising the most supplies and donations with the help of the UCLA Muslim Student Association.
UC San Diego, Cal-State Northridge, UC Irvine, Irvine Valley Community College and Dana Hills High School were among other large contributors to the drive.
“I personally think the drive was very successful because it was a statewide effort that achieved not only its goal of aiding the people of Afghanistan, but to bring awareness about the plight of the Afghan people which has been forgotten since Iraq,” said Homaira Hosseini, Undergraduate Students Association Council president.
She said she participated in the drive by allowing the USAC President’s office and her apartment to be used as a drop-off spot for supplies.
“It really touched us to see that so many people remembered the plight of Afghans,” said Mohammad Humkar, programming chair of the UCLA United Afghan Club.
The drive created an opportunity for Afghans statewide to work with one another and was ultimately made possible by the collective effort of every single person involved, Hossein said.
“It definitely taught me that by simply getting people together and organized, the results are promising,” said Rani Mohammad, a fourth-year global studies student.
The United Afghan Club will hold the first annual Afghanistan Awareness Week, aiming to raise awareness about the humanitarian issues affecting Afghanistan, from Feb. 3 to Feb. 5.