As you may know, MOAS participates annually in Giving Tuesday, a day of charitable giving scheduled on the Tuesday following Thanksgiving as part of a global initiative to encourage people to give back to their favorite charities to kick off the holiday season.
This year, in light of the current global crisis related to the COVID-19 pandemic, the Giving Tuesday team have decided to host a very special event next week: #GivingTuesdayNow. This event is an online fundraising, thanks giving and solidarity campaign in which charities around the world engage with their supporters in 3 ways:
- Fundraising: The pandemic has meant hardship and uncertainty for many, both individuals and organizations alike. The global trend in donations has plummeted and many scheduled grants/funding streams have been suspended. However, for many organizations, like MOAS the demand on our aid and services has only increased, and the strain on our resources in making it difficult to respond to the desperate needs of vulnerable communities.
During this COVID-19 response MOAS has ramped up our aid delivery to Yemen & Somalia, is initiating remote education programming for refugee children and is fundraising for ventilators for Italy. However, our main response has been in the rapid setup of cloth mask making projects in Bangladesh and Malta for refugees and vulnerable host communities. We desperately need the help of our donor community to continue these initiatives and so are asking you, on Tuesday 5th May, to donate if you are able so we can protect the vulnerable from the rapid spread of this disease:
- 10 Euros = Would pay for 7 meters of fabric to make cloth masks for the Rohingya refugees and host communities in Bangladesh
- 25 Euros = Will cover the cost for a pack of 50 cloth masks to be made in Malta for vulnerable migrant communities
- 50 Euros = Would pay 1 part-time seamstress in Bangladesh for 1 week’s work making masks for their community
- 100 Euros = Could buy a sewing machine to give a livelihood to a seamstress through our mask making project in Bangladesh
- Thanks Giving: This is being promoted as a day for us all to give thanks and show our appreciation for all those working hard on the front lines of this crisis, or volunteering their time and skills to support those in need at this pivotal moment. MOAS would like to take this opportunity to highlight the incredible work, and overwhelming response, of the hundreds of volunteers seamstresses in Malta who participated in our latest efforts to provide cloth masks to the asylum seekers and refugees housed in the government-run centres. To keep costs as low as possible an army of 140 volunteers participated in this mask making initiative, with an aim to make almost 7,000 masks between them. We are going to be sharing their images and stories with you as a sign of our thanks and appreciation.
- Community Participation: To encourage individuals and families around the world to participate in activities which demonstrate our global solidarity and community spirit. To support this we are asking children all across the MOAS family to print and decorate this wonderful GivingTuesdayNow image and to ask a parent to share and tag us on social media before displaying it proudly in a front facing window to show all neighbours that we stand together through this challenge and we provide comfort and joy to other through our creativity and care.
For all in our adult MOAS family we are going to publish, this coming Saturday, the video, cutting pattern and step by step instructions for our #MOASMasks. These masks are based on a CDC approved pattern with tutorial hosted by incredible Maltese designed and couturier Luke Azzopardi. We will explain what fabric to use, how to measure your pieces, what to do and how to sanitize the masks. This way we can all create something meaningful and donate to a local charity distributing masks to asylum seekers & refugees or other vulnerable groups such as roofless, non-medical frontline workers and so on. Make your masks and tag us on social media! Post your good deeds on the GivingTuesdayNow map: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSct-rRrnyP9sq4ADFqKuX5wWzI66Y1WPSf4p6yzmnvaTe1Eag/viewform
To round off this weeklong campaign our spokesperson and member of MOAS’ founding family, Maria Luisa Catrambone, will be participating in a Webinar looking at high impact investment and activity strategies for those active in philanthropy and charitable interventions looking for ways to respond to the COVID-19 crisis.
Look out for more resources and updates from us in coming days and please. Support MOAS and the #GivingTuesdayNow campaign in any way you can!