It’s well established fact that many Indian Muslims are lagging behind on many social index. The alarming situation is alarming as there is lack of education among the community and many live below the poverty line set by the government.
In order to arrest the downslide of the Muslim folks a Mumbai based organization Iqra education foundation and Iqra International Women’s Alliance (IIWA) has come forward are doing yeomen service to the community.
IIWA has come up with interest free micro finance scheme for poor Muslim women whose condition are worse then the men folk. Under the scheme, IIWA, supplies raw material on credit to the poor women who could work and make products mostly for Muslim life style market and IIWA helps them to market their products and get fair price.
The success story of micro finance scheme for Muslim women entrepreneurs illustrates the transformative role that IIWA has undertaken through networking and has transformed the lives of poor but hard working Muslim women, says Ms Uzma Naheed, President IIWA, on the sidelines of international conference on interfaith dialogue between Islam and other oriental religion held early this year in New Delhi.
A large number of Muslim women are engaged in home based work but earn very little due to middlemen who take away most of the profit. IIWA though its employment, livelihood programme helps the poor women to transform their entrepreneurial expertise into self sustaining business by providing them with raw material as their investment capital and also gives financial information and other services including marketing facilities, said Ms Naheed who is also member of All India Muslim Personal law Board.
The IIWA volunteers reach out to such women engaged in cottage industry and help them with interest free loans through providing raw material for their product upto Rs 2000 per head. It also provides them training, capacity building and marketing for their products.
The IIWA micro finance group of women are dealing in various products such as Abbayas, Hijjabs, Makhwana, Hajj Ummrah kits, Embroidered, Janamaz, Crocheted Namaz Duppatas, Crocheted bags, Paintings, Embroidery, needle work, Jeweler, Glass, Sequence, Zardozi work, Leather and Cloth files etc. IIWA not only guide women in selection of the product to be made but also help them sell those products.
IIWA is part of Iqra Education Foundation (IEF), a registered trust (Waqf) in Mumbai. It was established in 1999 to respond to the growing need of Islamic education for the Muslim community.
Iqra’s international education foundation, Chicago is the guiding force behind running IEF’s Islamic education programme in India. More than 200 scholars of international repute are engaged in creative application of modern methodology in making systematic comprehensive and integrated curriculum for IEF, said Ms Uzma Naheed, who is also the executive director of the Iqra education foundation.
IEF in India has launched well tested programes both in English and Urdu. It covers all Islamic subjects and provides text books, work books and educational and enrichment material on each subject. It offers a well planned system, which covers each level of comprehension for each group. It amalgamates all Islamic subjects within themselves and various genres of literature, providing reinforcement and fitting appreciation of the entire field of study.
The IEF’s programmes has developed over 30 years. It includes; consultation to educational institutions, training to teachers to improve the quality of education, development of literature reflecting Islamic studies and indo- Islamic culture for all levels and for all peoples.
IEF programme tries creative application of modern methodology to the production of literature and teaching of Islamic studies. It provides encouragement for establishment of institution to impart authentic Islamic knowledge in entire South Asia.
One of the prime objectives of IEF is to promote communal harmony and cohesion among various communities of India by elucidating the true universal message of Islam. It offers correspondence on Islamic studies that is available to all, irrespective of age, gender or religion. Iqra course help to be familiarized with Islamic view of life and is useful to develop pluralistic human society, said Ms Naheed, who is a member of world conference of religion and peace.
IEF has conducted teachers training programmes at 18 cities all over India and 2 cities in Bangladesh. More than 3000 teachers had participated in such programmes. These programmes received overwhelming response as they facilitate schools to implement the most modern teaching methodology being used in Europe and USA.
Ulema and teachers in Arabic Madarsa have showed interest in Iqra’s teaching programme and have participated in its workshop for teachers that help Madarsas to adopt modern teaching techniques.
More details about IIWA can be obtained from the website www.iiwaindia.org, or writing to iiwaindia@hotmail.com and more information about IEF activities can be found through the website www.iqraindia.org or writing to iqraindia@hotmail.com
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Syed Ali Mujtaba is a journalist based in Chennai. He can be contacted at syedalimujtaba@yahoo.com
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