Many youngsters from the Pakistan Youth Alliance have started a campaign under the banner of “Pak Palestine Solidarity Movement”. They are holding a Charity drive in Lahore, The PYA office is in Defence, near Masjid Chowk, and they will be putting up booths at the following places:

• Friday 9th January 2009: 3:00 PM after Jumma Prayers @ Main Market Opposit Jalal Sons.
• Saturday 10th January 2009: 12:00 Noon – 5:00 PM Regal Chowk, The Mall, Near Masjid-e-Shohada.
• Saturday 11th January 2009: 06:00 PM – 11:00 PM Main Market, Opposite Jalal Sons.

Besides donations, they are desperately looking for volunteers to man their booths, so if you feel you can spare a couple of hours, do get in touch with them. The collections will go out to help the Palestinian affectees through Muslim Hands. If you are a blogger, you are especially invited to join in and cover these drives on your blog.

You can contact the following for further Information

Maryam Kanwar: 0346-5084265 & 0331-5105916
Ahsan Tariq: 0346-4117787

You can also make direct donations to
Muslim Hands: http://www.muslimhands.org/en/gb/
IFRC: http://www.ifrc.org/

If you are related to the medical profession, the letter pasted below is another opportunity to reach out and volunteer to help the Palestinian victims.

Assalamualaikum.
I’m working with some people from the the ICRC and the Qatar Red Crescent and they’re setting up a field hospital in both Cairo and Gaza. They’re currently recruiting staff for those hospitals. The work in Gaza itself will obviously depend to a large extent on the amount of access possible through Rafah over the next few days and weeks.
There are 2 week to 8 week (or even longer) stints available there now and they’re recruiting able volunteer doctors from anywhere to go. They need anaesthetists, neurosurgeons/cardiac/orthopaedic surgeons, ER docs, ICU docs and nurses, obs/gynae docs, ID docs and public health doctors.

Flights/transport/food/water/cups of tea and shelter will be arranged and provided for by the ICRC and the Qatar Red Crescent.

Even if your specialty is in some other relevant area or your experience is somewhat limited please send in your applications all the same if you’re keen.

For all those interested please send a copy of your CV, with details of your nationality(include a copy of your passport) and the length of your availability to salam.obaidi@gmail.com

Selected volunteers will be contacted in due course.

Jazak Allah

Dr. Osman Dar
SpR Public Health,
Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust