Hyderabad: Zakat for education is the buzzword these days. Using zakat funds to leverage the prospects of deserving students has caught the imagination of funding agencies. The Indian Muslim Relief and Charities (IMRC), US is one such agency that has come forward to extend monetary support for the modern education of community students with the zakat fund.
Zakat forms one of the five basic tenets of Islam wherein every Muslim is enjoined to pay 2.5 percent of his savings for the welfare of society.
Last year the IMRC teamed up with the Hyderabad-based Full Stack Academy and reaped a good dividend when 65 of the hundred engineering and B.Sc (Computers) graduates landed plum jobs in top IT software companies. Buoyed by the success, IMRC has now decided to provide IT skill development scholarships and job placement to 100 zakat eligible students.
Thanks to their financial literacy, IMRC and its Indian branch, Sahayata Trust, is turning more frowns into smiles every day. They have succeeded to a great extent in taking Muslim students from their comfort zone to the growth zone. Over the years they have brought cheer into the lives of many poor and average students in Telangana by throwing open doors of opportunities for them. IMRC works to assess the needs of Muslims and minorities in poverty-stricken areas of India and develops projects based on their needs.
Bushra Nayyer of Hyderabad is all smiles at landing a job in Tata Consultancy Services. “Training at the Full Stack Academy helped me gain confidence and employability skills in my domain of interest,” she says.
Scores of students from Telangana and other states like Syeda Arjuman, Baderul Islam, Ameena Tabassum, Khaja Wasiq, Syed Gazanfar, Abdul Riaz, Ayesha Moiz, Saleema Arshad have secured jobs in companies such as Value Labs, MSR Cosmos. TCS, Skuad, Mindtree, Verizon, HCL, Infosys, Cognizant, Amazon. Most of them are now drawing a decent salary package starting from Rs 4.5 lakh to Rs. 7 lakh per annum. “After just three months of training we could successfully crack the interview,” the students say.
They are unanimous in their views that the training provided by IMCR and Full Stack Academy helped them overcome their diffidence, frustration and fear of rejection and failure. They are grateful for receiving monetary help in time to pursue their dream of securing a good job. A good number of students couldn’t have afforded the fee for the IT skill development course but for the zakat fund.
Of late there is a growing trend and acceptance of using the zakat money to fund modern education.
Normally a major chunk of the zakat money is cornered by madrassas. In recent years there is a demand in the community to use the zakat fund to facilitate modern education.
“It is the best way to help the poor students and ensure the economic uplifting of the community,” says Aijaz Ahmed, co-founder and managing director, Full Stack Academy.
“Skill development is the need of the hour. But there are a lot of issues in securing good jobs. Therefore, we want to train our students to get good jobs,” says Syed Aneesuddin, CEO, Sahayata Trust. He wants Muslim youth to avail the Rs 15,000 per student being provided by the Trust under the zakat programme.
The scholarship programme has evoked good response with more than a hundred applications received.
The last date to apply for the scholarship is October 20. The three-month course will commence from November 1. The course is open to students who have passed BCA, MCA, B.Sc. (Computers) and engineering in different streams in the academic year 2021 to 2023. Those who clear the interview will be selected for training with a placement assistance programme. The training courses are: DEVOPS+AWS, MERN –Full Stack Development and Azure Admin+Azure Devops. The course fee is a whopping Rs. 40,000 but those who get the IMRC zakat scholarship will have to pay just Rs 5000.
Upon completion of the three-month course and internship, the students will be trained in employability skills and taught resume writing, opening LinkedIn profile and tackling technology related interview questions.
“This time we are selecting only those students who are eligible for zakat funding. For this we are verifying their income details,” said Aijaz Ahmed.
Education should be the top funding priority. That’s what the IMRC-Sahayata Trust believes. Providing value to money, driven by purpose.
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