The story begins with our founder Muhammad Saleem Awan’s arrival in this country in January 2005 to study marketing at a university. He worked in the UK charity sector for ten years, mainly in Marketing, Fundraising, Events, Training, and Charity Operations. He always thought of starting a project for the welfare of our people here in the UK in need, especially those surviving on the streets. He came up with a very organic concept of Charity Begins at Home.

This concept is self-explanatory, easy to understand, and one of the world’s most famous sayings. To start this initiative, he was highly discouraged by those around him who thought these people were not deserving and meaningless. However, he took it as a challenge and decided to learn more. He spent a couple of months researching why those less fortunate (homeless) people were on the streets, what got wrong and why they ended up on the streets toward the end of 2015. After this incredible journey, he was fully committed to starting this concept as a charity at the beginning of 2016. Since then, we have never stopped.

We completed seven years of excellence and have never missed Friday Food Distribution since 2016. We distributed hundreds of thousands of food and life-essential items to those in need. Over 10,000 individuals have volunteered with us, and we have an active pool of 500-plus volunteers. Through our Corporate Volunteering Project, we have many corporate partners who are growing and supporting our projects. A thousand-mile journey began seven years ago, and the seed we planted in 2016 is now flourishing. CNN, BBC, Sky, BBC Radio London, and LBC all acknowledged our efforts. BBC News broadcast a video on our charity work on December 18th, 2022. We were over the moon when our charity was included in the first-ever Christmas speech by King Charles, which got 10 million views in the first 24 hours.

This is our story so far; the charity is growing, we are getting excellent community support, where people from all walks of life and from different segments of society join our hands, and we are on the highway to change the community’s social fabric. We will make society a better place to live. Together we are making a difference and will continue to do so.