British Empire Medal recipient Nazim Ali will travel to Malawi next month for what will be his 21st international humanitarian aid deployment in 12 years.
The Bradford humanitarian, who has raised more than £1.6 million for charitable causes, will once again fund his own flights, accommodation and food for the trip, which will take place from 17 to 25 October.
This time he hopes to raise £10,000 to provide hundreds of struggling families with food parcels containing enough essential supplies to potentially support them for up to a month.
More than £6,000 has already been raised towards the target.
Ali will travel as part of a four-person UK team working with Keighley-based international humanitarian charity Green Crescent Aid UK. His close friend Muhammad Shakeel, from Keighley, will also accompany him.
For Ali, however, this is not his first encounter with Malawi.
He travelled to the south-east African country in October 2019 and says the poverty he witnessed has remained with him ever since.
“I was shocked by the sheer mass scale of the poverty I witnessed,” he said.
“Families were living in mud-built and straw-roofed homes, they were walking miles on end to access clean water, children were visibly malnourished, often with no footwear and a lack of clothes, and homes had very few, if any, food items.”
Ali had planned to return in April 2020, but the deployment was cancelled following the outbreak of the Covid pandemic and grounding of international flights.
Seven years later, he will finally return.
£10,000 appeal to feed families
A major focus of the October deployment will be tackling food insecurity.
Ali hopes to raise enough money to distribute at least 285 food parcels to families identified as being among those most in need.
Each parcel will cost £35, weigh at least 32kg and is expected to contain staples including maize flour, rice, sugar, salt, soya, cooking oil and soap, alongside a traditional piece of cloth known as a chitenje.
The precise contents may change according to needs identified on the ground.
“Families will be struggling for food,” Ali said. “Large families are surviving, in many cases, on one meal a day.
“Please make daily life that much easier by contributing towards the food parcels. The more we raise, the more we can hand out.
“No donation is too high and no donation is too small – it all counts.”
The team will also provide hot meals and children’s treat bags, as well as visit hospitals and health clinics operated by Green Crescent Aid UK.
They are also due to distribute 160 live goats funded through Ali’s Blackpool 10K run in July.
For rural families, livestock can provide a longer-term source of food and income rather than simply immediate relief.
Ali has worked with Green Crescent Aid UK since 2017. Their previous work in Malawi has included transforming 133 homes and distributing almost 900 goats to rural communities.
The charity operates a 100 per cent donation policy, with money donated to Ali’s appeal going towards the stated cause, while he personally covers the costs associated with his travel.
Bradford businesses are also supporting the deployment, with Saveco Cash & Carry sponsoring sweets for distribution and Arome continuing its support for Ali’s humanitarian work.
From Bradford to communities around the world
The Malawi deployment will add another chapter to almost three decades of community and humanitarian work undertaken by Ali both in Bradford and overseas.
Alongside his charity work, he works full-time as a careers adviser across three inner-city schools and uses annual leave to undertake his overseas aid deployments.
His previous humanitarian trips have taken him to communities affected by poverty, displacement and conflict in countries including Bangladesh, Iraq, Pakistan, Lebanon, Jordan, Egypt and Burundi, as well as the Turkey-Syria border and refugee communities in France and Belgium.
His fundraising has also financed major housing projects.
Among them, Ali says £78,751 raised through his 2021 Ramadan 10K run funded 63 two-room homes for Syrian refugees, while subsequent campaigns helped finance 35 homes in Sindh, Pakistan, 36 in Uganda and 40 in Afghanistan.
His Ramadan 10K run in Derby earlier this year raised £102,590 towards 39 new homes currently being constructed in Azad Kashmir.
Closer to home, Ali also runs the Nazim Ali Foundation’s Khidma Community Kitchen in Bradford every Tuesday.
Supported by Saveco Cash & Carry, the initiative recently passed the milestone of serving 20,000 warm two-course meals to homeless people and others experiencing hardship.
Through his Creating Smiles Gifts Initiative, he has also made more than 50 visits to children’s wards at Bradford Royal Infirmary and Airedale Hospital, distributing gifts to young patients.
Ali’s contribution to community and humanitarian work was recognised nationally when he was awarded the British Empire Medal in the King’s New Year Honours 2025.
He was also made an Honorary Fellow of the University of Bradford in 2023 in recognition of his charitable and community work.
But ahead of his latest deployment, his attention has returned to the families he first encountered in Malawi seven years ago – and how many more can be reached when he returns in October.
Ali said he remained “eternally thankful” to the donors who have continued to support his campaigns.
His target is now to turn the £6,000 already pledged into £10,000 before he leaves Britain on 17 October – potentially providing a month’s food for at least 285 families.
Donations to Nazim Ali’s Malawi appeal can be made through his JustGiving fundraising page.
