Central Mosque and Al Yusra raise over £30,000 for Syria

Charity car wash

Members of Central Mosque, Rochdale and Al Yusra have raised over £30,000 for Syria. The groups have raised the money over two days and will now send it to two UK charities who will use it to help people in Syria.

Project leader Akhtar Hussein said: “I am so proud of the Rochdale community for the donations that they have given. I have to say a massive thank you to everyone who has donated. It has been amazing.”

To raise the money, the groups had a collection after prayers and organised a car wash. The collecting took place between Friday 27 December and Saturday 28 December.

By Monday 29 December over £27,000 had been raised but with money still coming in and donations still being collected, Akhtar is confident that the grand total will be more than £30,000.

“I think once everything is collected we will have about £31,000, which is fantastic,” added Akhtar.

Donations to the cause have included one man giving £1,000 and the owner of Shish Café in Rochdale saying he will donate his takings from yesterday (Sunday 29 December) and Wednesday 1 January to the total.

“When we first started this, I said I would be happy if we got £4,000 but on the Friday I was told we had raised £14,000 and I couldn’t believe it,” said Akhtar.

The car wash included the help of 40 volunteers and was set up at 9am on Saturday and cars were driving in from 9:30. The car wash proved so popular that it had to stay open an extra few hours to accommodate all the cars still arriving.

Central Mosque, Rochdale was set up in 1974 by the local Muslim community and is located on Mere Street, Rochdale. The charity car wash was held at the car park of the mosque.

Al-Yusra is a Muslim organisation, which was set up by two members of the Rochdale Muslim community. They were concerned about the lack of activities and reformation taking place from the Muslim youth of Rochdale. Akhtar described the group as “local lads doing good work.”