Dhoondo Karachi: Scavenging for a cause

Waking up early to head off to school on an early weekend morning is terrible. But not for the hundreds of participants who showed up at The Citizens Foundation’s (TCF) Qayyumabad campus to participate in their fund-raising event this Sunday.

The event’s unique appeal drove them to the campus: it was a citywide scavenger hunt. Teams of not more than four members had three and a half hours to locate sites and items across Karachi using 38 clues. Each team was registered for Rs6,800 – the cost of uniforms for eight TCF students.

The event was organized by Young Education Supporters (YES), a group of 20 young people working under the  TCF umbrella.

“[The YES] people [will] be our successors. They conceived, planned and executed this plan,” said Bushra Afzal, the Vice Chairperson of Sisters of The Citizens Foundation (STCF).

“This is the first event that we have organized, and we only had five weeks to execute the whole plan,” said YES member Armeen Ismail. “The idea behind this hunt is that there are so many places in Karachi that people haven’t seen, so why not send them there.”

The event was very engaging right from the start. Upon entering the premises, the teams had to take a picture at the photo booth before heading to the registration desk. Clever idea, as this picture helped YES volunteers recognize the team members.

Around 11 am, the team leaders were handed clue sheets in sealed packets and could not open them until everyone reached their cars. A whistle blew at 11:20 am sharp, and the participants ran to their vehicles as fast as they could.

Everyone had to be back before the clock struck.

The teams were enthusiastic about the hunt and tried to be creative with their names.

‘Beach Lovers,’ a team including two middle-aged schoolteachers, said they participated for the cause of education and hoped to do better than the younger teams because they “had more experience [of] the city.” ‘On the other hand, team Clueless Clan,’ who even had T-shirts made for the event, said they were trying to play reverse psychology on themselves and hoped to nab the top prize.

But Team Explorers won the first prize for four round-trips to Dubai by solving all but one of the clues. The second prize was a helicopter ride over Karachi, while other prizes included paragliding, a spa day, and food vouchers,

“I felt that it was a very creative and fun way for Karachiites to get to know their city better and raise money for a great cause,” said Team Explorer’s leader Anushka Talpur, praising the event’s organizers for managing such a large number of people.

“The clues were interesting and challenging, allowing us to learn about the city. We sang ‘Jazba Junoon’ with some awesome strangers, took a selfie outside a Hindu Temple on MA Jinnah road, and drove all around Karachi solving clues.”

Talpur said that it was a surprise for her team to have won the first prize. “We never thought we would win anything. We were having a great time as a team, exploring and solving clues.”

Another winning team member, Saad Nasir, revealed that they tried to cheat a little by asking for help from the other teams but soon “ran short of sympathy.” “The hunt was made easy by our awesome team, who did their parts well and stayed organized,” he added.

Not a single penny went out or entered the organizers’ pockets. While the money collected through registrations went to the cause of education, the event was arranged with the help of the sponsors.

“We didn’t get any money for ourselves through this event. So all that you see here are courtesy of our sponsors, while the registration money will be used for buying uniforms,” said Ismail.

Among the sponsors was Careem, an Uber-like service recently launched in Pakistan. They sponsored six teams and provided 23 of their taxis for those with conveyance issues. “The teams that were in our cars will be tracked live here by us,” shared Fatima Mazhar, Careem’s General Manager in Pakistan, before the event.

Those using Careem cabs weren’t the only ones being tracked. All the teams were required to WhatsApp their selfies with every clue they solved to their respective YES representative back at the campus. The team who solved the most clues won.

“We had over 100 teams, which brings us to a total of whopping Rs6 lakhs that we raised today for The Citizens Foundation!” read an announcement by YES on Facebook after the event.

YES hopes to organize the scavenger hunt every year.