Pakistani students at MSU are teaming up to help with relief efforts after an earthquake on Saturday in South Asia killed more than 20,000 people.
The MSU Pakistan Students Association and the Kashmir Students League plan to set up a booth in the International Center to collect monetary donations for victims of the catastrophe sometime this week, said economics junior Hassan Baweja, the general secretary for the Pakistan Students Association.
Group members also plan to send out a campus-wide e-mail on how students can help, and hope to collect blankets and clothes in the residence halls, said economics sophomore Talha Rahman.
"It's cold in the northern areas where the earthquake happened, and they need warm clothes," Rahman said. "I'm a Pakistani, and I feel like doing something for my country.
"I have to do it."
The group's efforts reflect an outpouring from across the state this week as individuals and organizations mobilize to offer aid.
Michigan is home to a growing Pakistani community with 54,631 Asian Indians, up from 23,845 a decade earlier, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.
Tariq Tahir of Commerce Township moved his family to the United States eight months ago. He is working to collect medicine and other supplies to send to Pakistan.
Tahir said his friends there are safe, but they have friends and family who have been crushed or are missing.
"No one can say who is alive and who is not alive," Tahir told The Detroit News for a Monday story.
Dr. Zeenat Anwar of Port Huron is organizing a relief effort as founder of the Human Development Foundation of North America. She travels often to her native Pakistan to provide education and health care.
Her family is in Islamabad.
"They are all safe, but they are accommodating other families whose homes are destroyed," she said.
She said she has concerns for those in remote areas of the country, where villages have been destroyed and rescue efforts are impeded by damaged roads and mudslides.
Among other groups working to help is International Aid. The Spring Lake-based Christian organization is working to assess needs through a communications link with nongovernment agencies in the earthquake region. The group expects to ship hygiene kits and portable medical clinics.
At MSU, the student association members said they will focus first on collecting money to send overseas before collecting other items. Many students have family and friends that were killed, Baweja said.
"(We) have a lot of emotional attachments to the country." Baweja said. "I just want to go out and help in any way I could."
For more information about how to help, email pakistan@msu.edu.
Corinne DeVries can be reached at devrie58@msu.edu.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
