Fundraising five focus on £1m target for flood victims

The men, all from Bradford, have helped raise £863,000 for emergency aid and reconstruction since the country was hit by floods a year ago.

Their most recent event, a dinner on July 24 in Bradford, hosted by cricketer Wasim Akram, raised £142,000.

The five are taxi-driving brothers Tariq and Khalid Hussain, who also have a family property business; Mohammed Sultan, a former cabbie who is now a community service officer with West Yorkshire Probation Service; restaurateur Khalid Chaudary and Rizwan Malik, a Bradford councillor who also mentors young Muslims in prison to help get their lives back on track.

All five help raise funds for the charity Islamic Relief, an agency that responds to emergencies and works to tackle poverty in more than 40 countries around the world.

Three of them travelled to Pakistan in October to help with reconstruction work and the two Khalids travelled there again last month

Islamic Relief’s UK director, Jehangir Malik, said: “These guys have done an incredible job raising money for Pakistan’s flood victims.

“This is a case of ordinary people doing extraordinary things to express their concern for those in need.”

Mr Malik said: “We are ordinary guys with daytime jobs and families but we really believe in the reconstruction work Islamic Relief is doing. We could see that people were in desperate need and we wanted to do everything we could.”

Mr Sultan added: “When we saw the floods on the news it was bad enough. When we went out there it was horrific – everything had been flattened and people had lost everything. A year on it’s been fantastic to see the money raised in the UK being used so constructively.”

The five raised the money in many ways, getting help from businesses, mosques, churches and holding events.

They publicised their work with a social media campaign, using Facebook, Twitter and other sites.

The charity has so far supported 420,000 people in nearly 600 villages in Pakistan.