Tayyaba Foundation
It was the year 2016, me and my brother Bilal Bin Saqib had the opportunity to take a step that might lead to the betterment of others. Availing the chance as it presented itself, we co-founded Tayaba, a Forbes-recognised social enterprise. The main aim for Tayyaba is to provide clean water solutions for vulnerable families in rural Pakistani communities. But that is not what we are limited to.
Apart from our activities in Pakistan under the Tayyaba Umbrella, we also contributed in the UK during tough times like COVID-19. In 2021, Bilal and I were commended with a Points of Light award for individuals making a change in their community by Prime Minister Boris Johnson for the One Million Meals campaign, providing free nutritious meals to NHS and frontline key workers including police, school staff and firefighters, during lockdown in 2020. I was named as a Commonwealth Youth COVID-19 Hero at the Commonwealth Youth Awards 2021. The Awards recognize those young people who are actively involved in bringing about meaningful change and are integral to creating a more innovative and interconnected future. This award meant a lot to me.
Being recognized as a Commonwealth Youth COVID-19 Hero for our initiative “One Million Meals” is incredibly humbling. When we founded this initiative in March 2020, along with Raja Suleman Raza, Arif Malik, and our dedicated team of volunteers, we never imagined it would receive such acknowledgment. Our goal was simple: to provide free hot meals to those on the front lines of the pandemic, including NHS staff and key workers. With the support of football legend David Beckham and Suleman Raza, we were able to make a real difference. To date, we’ve served over 100,000 meals and beverages in more than 200 locations, spanning more than 47 hospitals, trusts, and food banks. The coverage from English media outlets like the BBC, Sky News, and The Guardian has helped shed light on our efforts, but it’s the impact on those we’ve served that truly matters. We’re grateful for the opportunity to support our communities during such challenging times.
In Pakistan, the Tayyaba Foundation has led to multiple fundraisers to contribute to the welfare of those in need. In 2022, we launched an NFT-powered fundraiser that managed to amass 2 million PKR through the use of blockchain technology that not only provided transparency and scalable features for the contributors and financers of the scheme but also made the activity more foolproof.
The H2O blockchain that was established for this feat managed to support more than 100 female-led households. It also introduced digital wallets to the people of rural Sindh and contributed to providing clean water, which is a scarce resource. Similarly, the Tayyaba Foundation aspires to provide clean drinking water throughout Pakistan.