Meet the charity: Penny Appeal
For our second ever Meet the Charity interview, we spoke to Yaseen from Wakefield's Penny Appeal to hear all about the amazing work they do.
First things first, who are you?
I’m Yaseen Sheikh and I’m Head of Donor Relations at Penny Appeal.
What does your charity do?
Penny Appeal was set up in 2009 to provide poverty relief across Asia, the Middle East and Africa by offering water solutions, organising mass feedings, supporting orphan care and providing emergency food and medical aid.
Since then we have transformed lives and empowered communities around the world, helping to break the poverty cycle and build brighter futures.
Our work and our teams have grown considerably in the past few years, allowing us to launch many new campaigns and work in even more crisis-hit countries.
Our way of doing charity is simple, and has a massive impact. We make charitable giving affordable and rewardable, ensuring everyone can help the poor and needy by donating just a few pennies each day.
Where is your charity based and where do they do most of their work?
We’re based in Wakefield, Yorkshire, but our work is carried out in Asia, the Middle East, Africa and here in the UK.
What sort of things do you use donations for?
We like to say “we take small change and make a big difference with it.”
All our projects are carefully constructed and designed to be accessible and effective. They are a blend of emergency support, short-term relief and longer-term sustainable interventions. This multi-focus approach means we can save lives immediately, improve situations in the coming days and weeks, and transform communities for years to come, always giving desperate people the support they need depending on their situation.
We want to be really transparent about how donations are used and each year publish our Understanding our Accounts document.
What have you worked on that you're most proud of?
2020 was a huge year for us and we were able to achieve the following:
We distributed over a million meals during Ramadan
We provided emergency aid to over 83,000 people in crisis worldwide
We gave warm clothing, blankets and heating to almost 20,000 people during winter
We built over 8,000 wells for underprivileged people in Africa
We also hold a Guinness World Record for the Longest live broadcast for a charitable event which you can read about here.
Keep an eye out for our latest Annual Feedback document to see all the great things we did in 2021.
What are the biggest challenges still to overcome?
There are always people who need help but some of our biggest focuses over the next year will be helping those in the situations in Afghanistan, Palestine, Yemen and anyone impacted by the pandemic.
Other than donating, what’s the one thing people can do to support your charity and its mission?
Team Orange offers you an incredible range of opportunities to volunteer in aid of campaigns that really transform lives. It’s a great chance to do something amazing for those in need. Find out more here.
Plus, we’re always running fundraising challenges and events which take place everywhere from Peru to right here in the UK. Find out about those here.
Find out more about Penny Appeal by searching for them in the app or head to https://pennyappeal.org/.
