Bhopal: A delegation of Indian Muslim Relief & Charities (IMRC), from the United States recently visited India for the assessment of various projects they run or sponsor in the country.
[Ashrafun Bibi, a beneficiary in Kuinbar village, Gaya.]
The delegation was led by IMRC Vice President Maqsood Quadri and also included Hameed Mohammed. Two young documentary film-makers from Florida, who are making a film on the works of the IMRC, had also visited along with them.
The first important stop of the delegates was at Jahangirabad, a Mughal era fortress about 40 KM from Lucknow, where IMRC is running engineering, management and media institutes. The focus of these institutes is to provide quality education particularly to students from poor background and there are special scholarship schemes for meritorious students.
IMRC also held an assessment meeting of its volunteers here from north India. A special focus of the meeting was assessing the relief work being done in Jammu and Kashmir after the recent flood. IMRC has decided to partner with a local organisation for educational rehabilitation and will soon conduct test for admission and scholarship opportunities for its vocational colleges in Jahangirabad.
IMRC Vice President Maqsood Quadri said: "We believe in sustainable and long term solutions and education can be an important tool for empowerment. We are hence working on providing scholarships and other opportunities to meritorious students."
The next stop of the visiting team was the region at Bihar-Jharkhand border known as Ghorighat, where they met beneficiaries of the several projects they run in collaboration with local organisations in villages of Gaya, Chatra districts south of Patna, Bihar and in the state of Jharkhand. This is the region, where the word development has not reached yet, most of the villages do not have electricity supply and there is not even proper road.
IMRC has sponsored some of the students coming from poor background or orphans who are studying in local madrassa, has helped open maktab in village Kusmachi under Kothi police station and are also working for the 'mainstreaming' of these maktabs and madrassas. They also plan to set up a health centre in Ghorighat.
IMRC has also provided water pumps to several homes in many of these families, besides providing them aids in different forms round the year, particularly on occasion of Ramadan and Eids. In village Kuinbar, Gaya we met Millatun Nisa, a 35 year old widow, who has six children who gets aids in different forms. We also met Ashrafun Bibi who is happy that she now has own tube-well and does not have to go far to fetch water.
In Sherghati, Mohammad Affaque, Qasim Miya and Safi Ahmed too, like many others, are happy that they now have their own tube wells to draw water. Poor residents of Sherghati earlier had to walk several miles to fetch water. Across India, IMRC has installed around 200 water pumps and they plan to take the number to 500 soon.
While expressing IMRC's resolve to work for the mainstreaming of madrassas, Hameed Mohammed stressed on the need of general education, besides Islamic teachings. Realising the situations on the ground, he said that he will personally work to establish a health centre in the region.
IMRC Vice President also held a meeting in Patna where several parents and guardians of students from Jahangirabad institutes had gathered, and the positive feedbacks they got, particularly from parents, gave them new zeal.
The last stop of the current trip was Hyderabad, where IMRC runs an Indo-US Hospital besides running successfully Challenger International School as well as an orphanage for girls at Moinabad, about 25 Km from the City of Nizams.
IMRC executes most of its projects in India through its sister organisation Sahayta trust, based in Hyderabad. On January 10, Sahayta trust held a meeting of its volunteers from South India. A young group from North-East Manipur Muslim Online was also represented by two of its volunteers.
Syed Anisuddin, Chairman of the Sahayta Trust, said: "Being a charitable institution, we do not have any motive of earning money, but with more funds we would want to enthuse fresh blood to our organisations so that it further grows."
IMRC has presence in at least 17 states in India. Although the bulk of donations of IMRC largely comes from Indian origin Muslims in the United States, but their benevolent patrons are spread across the world. Besides education sector, IMRC also organises health camps, work in rural development and provide relief materials to poor and victims of calamities from ethnic riot in Muzaffarnagar to flood victims in Kashmir.
IMRC is a US based non-profit organization which began in 1981 and help run several programmes throughout India in partnership with over 100 organizations. It works to improve social structures and economic opportunities for minorities and run educational institutions, besides supporting poor and marginalised in different ways. (pervezbari@eth.net)
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