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Ismail belongs to an agricultural/labor family who toil hard on
their barren & salty land in the Rann of Kutch (desert area of
western India). In the lean months they walk their life stock i.e.
sheep, goats and cows for grazing. In spite of such a rural and
primitive background Ismail was always been very keen on education,
which he fought for and got. Today he can proudly claim to be the
first from his community/area pursuing a course in graduation. In
Khavda and surrounding areas the predominantly Muslim community is
trapped in a vicious cycle of no education/
poverty/unemployment/insecurity/fundamentalism back to poverty. This
is what Ismail and his team wanted the end off. From the very
beginning Ismail always wanted to do something similar, aspired to
be a teacher and Pratham enrolled him to do just that.
In January 2001 the Kutch area was rocked by an earthquake which
shattered scores of houses, killed many people. This was the period
Ismail was in school studying in the 11th standard. Right in front
of his eyes he saw the earthquake taking a heavy toll. Many
organization came forward to give the devastated a helping hand.
Ismail took inspiration from them and got involved in rehabilitation
work with the Indian Red Cross. This rich experience showed him the
importance of service to humanity which he continued to do. In two
years many houses were built. People went back to their homes and
began their life once again.
What was also noticed was that the earthquake also took a toll of
the school system. No teacher attended school and the same was with
children. The literacy rate fell, the girl child was discouraged and
just not allowed to step out of the house. This is when Ismail roped
in his friends, intervened and decided to bring the entire lot back.
They worked their way and got the children to attend school, they
also saw to it that the girls were not left behind. Their hard work
paid and slowly the % attendance increased. However they were only
partially successful.
And then it happened, their association with Pratham took shape.
Solaris Chemtech Limited (SCL) Khavda, a Thapar Group Co. joined
hands with Pratham. Having joined Pratham as a teacher Ismail roped
in his friends too. Very soon he was asked to steer the program
forward. While working they realized that besides the trauma of
earthquake there were several other reasons which was keeping the
child out of school.
The rich experience Ismail and team got from Pratham gave them the
confidence to interact with several government teachers who they
requested to come back to school. Some of the parents were found to
be reluctant to send their children esp. the girl child. To solve
the problem help was taken of ‘Maulvis’ (priest of the Muslim
community) who not only encouraged the community to send their girl
child but also volunteered to pick them up and drop them back to
their homes. Before the project started there were very few girls
attending school regularly, now there are almost 80%. It took them
one year to convince the community and parents. It is indeed very
rare to find the Madrasa’s teaching anything but Koran. The Maulvi’s
roped in by them and respected by the community started imparting
formal education. They had succeeded in winning the confidence of
the community.
A lot of recognitions came their way for restoring gender parity and
also for getting the Maulvi’s to teach other than Koran. It was
being hailed all across.
a] The project received the prestigious TERI-CSR award at the hands
of the President of India Dr. Abdul Kalam at a glittering ceremony
at Delhi.
b] Media coverage through a front page article on the project
published in the prestigious magazine ‘Civil Society’.
c] Local newspapers covered all the important programs of the
project.
d] Ismail was nominated by the education dept of the Govt. of
Gujarat to oversee the working of schools/keep a tag on teachers all
more qualified than him.
And the icing on the cake “THE ECPAT AWARD” a global recognition.
Click here
Another first achieved by Ismail and his team was getting the donor
to provide transport facilities for deserving students from the
neighboring villages. This was necessitated because of high drop
outs reason, lack of transportation facilities in the area. The team
also took extra efforts to prepare children for board exams. With
financial assistance from their donor they are running special
classes for children preparing for board (high school) examinations.
From almost 0% the result in the year 2006-07 was a very encouraging
40%. | 
