A Pakistani student organization is collaborating with Wesleyan University’s Muslim Students Association throughout June to raise funds for the Black Lives Matter movement.
The Pakistani Students Association, in collaboration with Wesleyan’s MSA, is hosting a fundraiser to raise $10,000 by the end of June for 12 Black advocacy organizations involved in anti-racism advocacy. Netflix will be tripling half of the proceeds that were raised from June 9 to June 15, and Apple will be doubling all funds raised from June 15 to June 30, according to the fundraiser’s flyer.
Recent graduate Khadija Malik, the former president of PSA, said members of Wesleyan’s MSA approached the organization in early June asking to collaborate with their fundraiser for Black advocacy organizations like Color of Change, Fair Fight Action and National Bail Out. She said the Black Lives Matter fundraiser is the organization’s first time collaborating with Wesleyan’s MSA and the organization will use its platform as a student group to raise donations and bring awareness for the Black community’s movement.
“We’ve seen so many celebrities and politicians be performative with their activism, and we wanted to take a more concrete initiative to help out Black people,” Malik said in an email.
She said she was drawn to participate because of the fundraiser’s promise to distribute evenly to multiple Black organizations fighting against systemic racism. She said the fundraiser raised more than $750 in its first two days, exceeding expectations and causing the organizers to raise their final fundraising goal from $5,000 to $10,000.
Students who want to donate to the fundraiser can do so through Venmo or Apple Pay, according to the flyer. Malik added that the organization has been posting resources that would educate followers about anti-Black sentiments in the South Asian community to enforce its solidarity for the Black community and sponsored a Bingo Board during the Black Student Union’s fundraiser.
“In addition to collaborating on this fundraiser, we have posted relevant links to help our followers initiate conversations about racism, colorism and anti-Blackness with their own families in several different languages,” Malik said.