By Dr Mookhi Amir Ali,
A couple of years ago two or three Muslim young men with some fire in their stomachs started wondering if they can do something for the betterment of the community. What was the field they were best suited to work in and which was the most urgent need of the community? Where should be the theatre of their operation? Which section of the Muslim community should be their target? As the parleys continued number of other like-minded youngsters joined the caravan. Soon there were more than a dozen of them bending over the drawing board. With a dream of becoming useful members of the community this band of youngsters organized themselves as Progressive Education and Welfare Trust [PEWT].
Not having pretensions of being anything big, they thought their activity will have to be restricted to their own sect of the Muslim community, namely Shias.
To begin with, the youngsters decided to zero in on the problem of education. Lack of education is the root cause of all backwardness and education is the panacea of all problems.
Considerable research went into identifying the geographical area where their action would begin. The PEWT chose the slums of Malvani near Malad suburb of Mumbai and a slum perched on a hill outside the Mumbai airport. At both the places the living conditions are miserable. The number of drop-outs and children not ever enrolled in school is very high.
In the areas earmarked for their work the PEWT volunteers identified such households in which there are children of school going age who are either not admitted in schools or are drop-outs. They investigated the reasons for their problems and made plans for addressing such problems. As I see it, the PEWT’s work is concentrated in seeing that the young ones become at least literate and are prepared to grab the opportunities when and if they come their way. I mean the opportunities for higher education or may be jobs/vocations/careers. Identifying the “gifted” among the children and motivating them for higher education may perhaps form PEWT’s future projects.
If every small community takes care of the educational needs of their folks, the Muslim community need not keep on begging for reservations for their students and stop putting the blame for lack of education among Muslims at the door of the governments. I am confident that the PEWT can be projected as a role model for other Muslim sects to follow. Theirs is a genuine grassroots effort. The approach is very holistic in the sense PEWT is addressing problems leading to problems. Their sustained interest in following up the progress of the kids is a much needed endeavor and is laudable.
The PEWT not only enrolled the children of the willing parents in good schools but also subsequently kept track of them. The cooperation from the Principals of the schools was touching. The PEWT only gave to school children coupons to make payment of fees which the schools willingly accepted. Not only that when volunteers of PEWT visited schools to make good the payment on the coupons they were surprised with discounts. A sort of indirect scholarships with the compliments of the Principal.
These projects of PEWT have gathered steam. The number of volunteers willing to give time and efforts has risen. The following volunteers have now become the force of PEWT, braving the squalor and stench of the slums, hopping over ever present potholes filled with filth to go into the hutments, often climbing vertical ladders. Here is the list. A prayer for their good health will be in order:
Mr. Karim Merchant
Mrs. Riaz Jaffrey
Mrs. Shahnaz Irani
Mr. Shabbar Sundrani
Dr. Asif Shamji
Mr. Irfan Karim
Mr. Aman Mookhi
Mr. Aunali Rupani
Mr. Syed Muslim Abbas
Mr. Ali Abbas Mukadam
Mrs. Sana Rupani
Mr. Ali Raza Merchant
Mr. Sadiq Shroff
Mr. Zain Merchant
The PEWT has just completed two years of its campaign of spreading education in Mumbai slums. They have encouraging figures to show. I am presenting below an extract of a short correspondence I had with one of the office bearer of the trust:
“In Jarimari we work for people living in a place called khadi no.3. All the kids of this area who are being funded by PEWT are going into one school i.e. Oxford English High School. It is a private school (government recognised) run by Dr. Abdul Gani. He has been very helpful to us and also gives us discount as well as time to pay the fees. We have 43 students in this area. All of them are small children studying in Primary (i.e. till 4th)
In Malavni the families aided by us are spread out. As of date we have 235 students registered with us studying in 20 different schools/colleges. Of this the 4 schools i.e Elia Sarwat, St. Paul, St. Mathew & NTCC cover more than 2/3rd of the 235 students.
These 235 students also include around 5 students who are studying in colleges.
Principal of Elia Sarwat Mr. Rizwi had been the most helpful to us. However, we have got good support from other schools too.”
I am sure there must be many young men and women in our community who may be having the same passion to do something for the society. Individuals and groups wanting to have advice/ assistance in setting up such projects or those wanting to extend assistance may access www.pewt.org.