A BRADFORD fundraiser is hoping his latest trip to Malawi will see him top £200,000, as the amount he has raised so far for charities and humanitarian projects over the past 13 years.

Nazim Ali, who won a British Citizen Award earlier this year for services to the community, will be in Malawi from October 26 to November 3.

He is embarking on a self-funded aid trip to the poverty-stricken area in southern Africa with Green Crescent Aid UK to distribute various types of aid to the poor people in the remote and rural villages. In March 2019, Cyclone Idai caused widespread destruction in Malawi and neighbouring Mozambique.

"The four-strong team will be primarily distributing food parcels to poor families. Although, we will distribute footwear, sweets to children, goats to poor families, visit hospitals, open water wells and I will undertake football coaching for Malawian youngsters."

Mr Ali, from Manningham, has opened a fundraising page to raise £5,000 towards the cause.

The cost of getting there is coming out of his own pocket.

"It means all the money I raise will go to the project," he said.

"For me helping those in need, respective of religious affiliation or ethnicity, whether at local or international levels, I see as my religious obligation as a devout British Muslim.

"The annual leave I get in my profession as a careers advisor, working in three inner-city schools, I use for my humanitarian aid trips. I also regularly volunteer on a weekly basis with the Curry Circle Project in Bradford which serves warm food to the homeless and destitute in the Bradford District.

"I have on seven occasions in recent years delivered aid in person to the Turkish/Syrian border region. At the start of Ramadan in May 2019 I visited war-torn Mosul distributing Ramadan food parcels.

"In January 2018 I delivered aid to Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh and by road delivered aid to refugees in France and Belgium in September 2015.

"In addition, at the local level I have been involved in supporting refugees. I assisted on the front line with the Cumbria and Calder Valley Flood relief efforts in December 2015 and January 2016. "I am the founder and co-ordinator for the last seven years of the Creating Smiles gifts initiative for poorly children in Bradford Royal Infirmary and Airedale Hospital children's wards."

Mr Ali also served as a non-magistrate on the North and West Yorkshire Advisory Committee for nine years until my term retirement in January 2019."

Some of Mr Ali's humanitarian initiatives can be seen on his Youtube channel at: https://youtube.com/channel/UCIMKv-7hIGW7HUnSAGsrTww

Anyone wishing to donate to his latest fundraiser should go to: www.gofundme.com/naz007