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Architecture Students for Liberation raised $650 for international charities with its first “Eid Sweets Pre-Sale,” which celebrated the Muslim holiday Eid that marks the end of the holy month of Ramadan.

Two student organizers from the group created the sale offering cultural sweets for purchase, with a majority of the profit going to charities such as Operation Olive Branch, Ramadan for Sudan, civilians in high-violence areas of South Sudan and Friends of the Congo — all of which focus on areas that are undergoing violence regarding calls for independence.

One of the organizers described the group’s goal as “digging deep into the ties that architecture has to liberatory practices and actions and movements around the world.”

“AS4L wants to recognize people of different backgrounds and their own efforts towards liberation,” a volunteer and fifth-year architecture student said. “The aim was to set up an educational, and conversational kind of environment for students to have educational discourse about these things.”

Student organizers said they struggled during the planning process of the fundraiser. AS4L is not a registered student organization, so the organizers had to find a sustainable solution since they didn’t have a “backbone” to help sponsor or cater the event, they said.

“One of the challenges that we were kind of grappling with was the liabilities and risk of food management and other types of things that might come out with doing a pre-sale, since we’re not official,” the first student said.

Financial planning for the fundraiser was another challenge organizers faced.

“We were grappling with this idea of whether we should kind of fund this ourselves, and then send all the money to donations, but we found that oftentimes in fundraising and in financial models for fundraising, you can be as transparent as possible with people who are going to be buying your product,” the first student said.

AS4L distributed the sweets on April 11th. Each $12 box included the customer’s three choices from a menu of five sweets, including dates, Turkish Delights, Halal marshmallows and an assortment of candy.

While taking orders, the organizers found that many people were willing to donate without purchasing sweets.

“We had about 37 orders, to be exact, and then from that we also had a lot of people just donate money. So not everyone, but a lot of people gave like $15 to $20,” the first student said.

The organizer’s posters that advertised the pre-sale were vandalized, the second student said. One organizer said they believed it was due to the political climate at Syracuse University amid the current Israel-Hamas war.

“Some of our fliers got torn down, some of them had writings on them, and one of them had writing on it saying ‘what about Israel?’” a second student organizer said. “It was kind of expected that there would be some responses, since we had written on (the flier) that (at least $8) is going to Palestine, Congo and Sudan, just knowing the climate that the school is currently in.”

Members of the group said that despite being met with resistance, they also experienced sentiments of support from the community.

“Even with packing the boxes, people that were a part of the original idea volunteered to help us pack them and to have them out,” the first student said.

The group also encountered administrative barriers when it came to advertising the pre-sale. Event organizers asked administrators in the School of Architecture to send fliers in a Listserv, but they “refused,” the first student said. The first student said they didn’t know if it was because of the fliers’ content or because the group is not an RSO.

The two organizers said their understanding of architecture and liberalized movements inspired them to take the initiative to organize the presale. Colonial structures are maintained through architecture, the second organizer said, and, because of this, it can be used as a form of resistance to colonialism.

“When you analyze the spatial positioning of things in space and the way it informs movement, and bodies and access, it all becomes really apparent to who is being oppressed and who is the oppressor,” the first student said.

Additionally, the volunteer mentioned how they felt volunteering for the pre-sale, and why they chose to do so.

“This is a whole celebration of a month, people just praying and be, trying to bring about peace, so that was another kind of beautiful aspect to it, and I think spreading awareness about what Ramadan is to students and celebrating that in the light of the times was very nice to see,” the volunteer said.

Published on April 30, 2024 at 11:33 pm

Contact Zaara: zamalik@syr.edu