A beloved teacher, Rawhia El-Mahdy, passed away suddenly two years ago and the Washington International Academy’s Young Leaders Club for Girls decided to honor her memory by hosting an annual 5K and Fun Run with proceeds going to a different charity every year.
Last year the event was well attended by the Dar al Hijrah community as well as neighbors of other faith traditions and raised $2,500 for Shaukat Khanum Cancer Hospital in Pakistan.
This year’s race will be on November 16, 2014 at 10:00 am. Organized by WIA’s 7th and 8th graders, proceeds from this event will be donated to Save an Orphan. Preschoolers as young as 4 years of age can participate in the Fun Run for the first mile around the WIA parking lot. The rest of the race is through the Bren Mar Park next to the school campus, located in Alexandria, VA. Walkers or runners can download an app called Map My Run on their phones.
Zulakha Imran is the social studies teacher who leads the Young Leaders Club for Girls Program. Everything about the 5K is a part of the curriculum. The students researched the charities, designed the website, the logo, will process the credit card payments, order the shirts and set up on the day of the run. She guides them along the way, but says that the effort belongs to the middle school girls.
After presentations and voting by the school, Save an Orphan was the charity chosen for this year’s beneficiary. A UK based non-profit that repairs and rebuilds orphanages, including waste disposal systems.
“The monies raised will be used to fix toilets in the orphanages in Bangladesh,” shared Imran. The orphanages that exist in Bangladesh lack basic of facilities such as clean water supplies or basic sanitation.” Many buildings and their inhabitants are in constant danger from cyclones and flash floods. These orphanages, built with flimsy materials, have toilets which consist of tin walls, a roof and a hole in the ground, quote the WIA students. The young women share on the website designed by their club that ‘these toilets carry serious threats of disease and are often the cause of many ailments. Orphans [bathe] in nearby rivers or stagnant ponds where they can do more harm than good, therefore we will build clean bathing areas.”
El-Mahdy, their teacher was known as someone ‘spent her free time helping others.’ She was modest and exuded patience and she taught them well— for them to be forces of goodness. “This was a way to turn the despair into positivity for the students,” relays Imran.
Marjan Naderi, the young woman who won the design competition for this year’s T -shirts, hopes the Muslim community will attend the run and help honor her Quran teacher and continue her sadaqa jariya by helping the middle schoolers raise money for the orphans. So bring your family for some fun, fitness and fundraising in the November sun.
All 5K participants will meet at Washington International Academy; each participant will receive a specially designed shirt and a bottle of water. The registration fee for the 5K after November 7 is $25 per person, and same day registration is $30. For more information visit wia5k.weebly.com
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