ARIF ALI, Vice President Jamaat-e-Islami Hind and General Secretary Human Welfare Foundation which is working for the empowerment of backward sections of the society, explains the projects of Vision 2026.
How does Vision 2026 differ from Vision 2016?
First of all I commemorate the visionaries and philanthropists who started the project of Vision 2016. Personalities like Dr. Abdul Haq Ansari and Sayyid Hamid, etc. initiated this mass project in a very particular situation. The role of Prof. K.A. Siddiq Hassan is unique in giving shape to and leading the project. Such a project would not have come up if such a high capacity and active leader wasn’t there at the helm. I pray for his long life and sound health.
‘Vision’ is the name of a huge dream – a dream to elevate the backward sections of the society to advance towards an average standard of living. The staff members and volunteers of ‘Vision’ are making huge strides in formulating the activities of this dream.
The Justice Rajinder Sachar Committee was a mirror which reflected the extreme sorry state of affairs of Indian Muslims. Through this reflection the activists of Vision 2016 have been able to collect data and information regarding the Muslim society and other backward sections of the society and also create awareness and activeness among the rich people and high ranking personalities in and out of the Muslim community.
Vision 2016 was a huge icon for the activities for the backward sections of the society. At present the architects of Vision have given shape to projects for the next ten years. The backwardness of the deprived and poor sections cannot be changed within ten years or some decades. Now we are entering into the new phase with the confidence we have attained from the previous ten years. One of the biggest achievements of ‘Vision 2016’ is this expertise and confidence. The ten-year experience has helped us fix our priorities, take up new projects and select new fields. While taking up new initiatives, we also keep in mind the new socio-political situation that has developed in the country.
While moving ahead from Vision 2016 to Vision 2026 with projects, the main priorities are as follows:
- The service activities will be carried out with complete partnership of the clients and beneficiaries. Instead of one group giving and another receiving, the projects have been formulated in such a way that the persons who are taking the initiative for progress and the benefactor stand shoulder to shoulder so that the benefactor becomes self-sufficient.
- Instead of working in different places, by noting the changes precisely and finding the scratches and damages through keen analysis and going ahead by rectifying them, the selection of the place and service will be done more accurately. There is an alarming and huge difference in every index of social development between the Muslim average and the Indian general average. This disparity is visible in almost all the fields like literacy, dropout rate, participation in higher education, participation in jobs, per capita income, child death rate, malnourished mothers, lack of nutritious food, unhygienic conditions, lack of pure drinking water, etc. Each statistics after independence calls out that this disparity is only increasing. The aim of Vision 2026 is the strong effort to end this disparity through the community initiative. We have this concept before us when we plan and outline different projects.
- It is not possible to go ahead with service activities in the same localities in every era. The peculiarity of Vision 2026 is to make plans and strategies to get human resource and economic support from the designated places itself and make the projects more sustainable. We have also prepared projects to find volunteers from each locality and provide them with spiritual, intellectual and physical training.
- Vision 2026 aims at starting Micro-finance schemes on a large scale. We hope that the self-help groups and credit co-operative societies established in rural and suburban areas will strengthen social development activities.
- During the last ten years we received unflinching support from a lot of generous persons for activities of Vision. Perhaps as a community the Kerala Muslims helped Vision the most. A lot of people are keeping aside a part of their earnings for the hard-working backward sections of central and north India. But, this money that is collected comes only to a small amount of the total budget allocated by the state governments and different government institutions and establishments for welfare schemes. Though crores of money is allocated by the central and state governments for welfare schemes in their yearly budgets, it doesn’t reach the deserving people. A good share of it is wasted and a lion’s share thereof goes into the pockets of government servants and dealers. The reason for this is that the deserving persons and organisations do not have the proper knowledge of acquiring the service or they do not have the proximity with such government centres. Vision 2026 has included in its programme a mass project to help government agencies to make sure that the government services reach the deserving people. We will be able to reach out to the public with wealth more than what is spent on implementing this project.
Which are focus areas in Vision 2026?
Education, health service, economic development, women empowerment, disaster management and rehabilitation, social welfare and development are the focus areas in Vision 2026. Precise objectives and plans have been decided in each field. Following are the main activities:
Education
It will be ensured that all the children of Muslims as well as backward societies are going to school. The effort will be taken to bring down the dropout ratio of the children in this group to the average national level and also increase the quality of education. Also Vision 2026 will start model school Scholar schools in new places. NGOs will be formed to run these schools effectively. Besides this a lot of pre-primary and special schools will also be started.
All facilities will be made available to the excellent students of Muslim society as well as backward sections who are preparing for state-central civil service examinations. Vocational and technical institutes will be initiated in Muslim majority cities and towns. According to the Article 30 of the Indian constitution a society will be registered for establishing and running minority educational institutions. Efforts to increase the efficiency of the madrasas and minority institutions will be taken.
Research activities will be carried out to reform the Right to Education according to the change in time and which is capable for social auditing. New schemes will be started to make quality education available. The activities of Vision 2026 are also meant for strengthening the moral values in the educational field.
Health Security: The biggest problem is the unhygienic conditions in the villages and slums adjacent to cities. More attention will be paid to creating awareness among the people for making them conscious of hygienic conditions and also saving them from the threat of epidemics. The malnutrition in mothers is causing increase in child-death rate. Though the government is declaring many projects to tackle this issue, they are not reaching the villagers. By establishing health awareness centres throughout the villages, preventive vaccines for children below five years, health security of mothers and children, etc. will be ensured. Facility for clean water and toilets in houses and public places will be arranged. Sanitary napkins will be made available to girls.
Medical Awareness Campaigns which can create health and literacy awareness will be launched to train the public of healthy and hygienic life habits. De-addiction camps, public medical camps and eye check-up camps will be conducted. NGO will be registered to utilise the services of doctors and paramedical staff.
New primary health centres will be set up in 100 places. Mobile medical vans will be established. Five new multi-speciality hospitals and ten diagnostic centres will also be started. A chain of co-operative medical shops will be started to make affordable and cheap medicines easily available. A Drug Bank will be established. Community Health Insurance Scheme will be started.
Economic Development: Efforts will be made to raise the employment index of Muslims as well as the backward sections by conducting market value based skill development programmes and creating awareness about job opportunities. For this Technical Vocational Certificate courses will be started. By encouraging entrepreneurship employment opportunities will be increased. Opportunities for earning will be opened by providing economic education.
Co-operative institutions will be initiated for modernising and supporting occupations like agriculture, sewing, handloom, manufacture of handicraft, etc.
Women Empowerment: As part of Vision 2016 there are also stages for the empowerment of women. In order to handle these topics NGOs will be initiated on national level under Vision 2026. The expertise and self-sufficiency of women will be developed with the help of professional agencies.
Disaster Management and Rehabilitation: The public will be given awareness and training regarding the handling of disaster situations. Facilities for legal help will be provided for the disaster affected people.
Social Welfare and Development: Various projects have been planned to help orphans, widows, patients, the aged, etc. Around 10,000 orphan students up to Class XII will be supported. Twenty Rescue and Rehabilitation centres for widows, helpless women, street children, etc. will be started.
An NGO by the name of ‘Nagarik Vikas Kendr’ will be started to provide information and knowledge about government welfare schemes, and ways to make them available to the minorities and other backward sections will be explored. As part of this, Information and Guidance centres will function in selected one hundred villages.
Pressure will be exerted on the central and state governments to implement the Prime Minister’s 15 Point Programme and the Multi-Sectoral Development programme.
One hundred one villages will be adopted as Model Villages and an NGO by the name of ‘Gramin Dosti’ will function to unify the developmental programmes over there.
Can you please explain the Model Village Project?
As part of Vision 2016 we adopted some villages as Model Villages. We have been able to create some remarkable changes in these villages. A village is selected as a Model Village on the basis of some criteria. A primary study is conducted about the village with the help of the Panchayat office, Village office and Gram Sabha. On the basis of this, statistics is collected by going door to door in the specific village. The villages are adopted later on. A project of five years is implemented in each village.
The aim is not to make a lot of construction activity by spending huge amounts of money in the selected adopted village. The effort is to bring the government projects with the co-operation of the local government bodies to the villages. The lack of pure drinking water is creating serious health hazards. Therefore, facilities for drinking water will be established. The facility to provide at least 20 litres of water each day to each house has been planned.
Much importance is given to the school education. Mid-day meals will be arranged at schools. Efforts to completely stop the dropout of children from schools in the selected villages will be made. If there are no schools in the villages then ‘one teacher schools’ will be launched. If the school is outside the village then transport facilities will be arranged to reach the school. Instructions and guidance will be provided regarding higher studies and brilliant students will be given facilities outside their villages for higher studies.
We are also providing job training for the youth and also forming ‘Self Help Groups’ among the ladies. Assistance will be provided for marketing the village products and gaining good price.
Special attention will be paid to avoid communal-caste tensions and upheavals. The community cultural centres that are established in these villages will be places of gathering for the villagers. Mosques and madrasas will be established in the Muslim majority areas. In order to focus attention on village development, social workers will be appointed and given training.
[Translated by Mahboob Thaha from Malayalam weekly, Prabodhanam (January 27, 2017); [email protected]]