Day 100 - Announcement
Day 100 - Announcement
School by Pixabay
Sajida, is my sister, among 51% girls in Pakistan and 80% men who are in welfare systems. She was alone, had a daughter, special, couldn’t move and live on her own. Countless struggles, criticisms and humiliating comments made her question the Justice of Allah. She felt alone and isolated.
While the world around her was collapsing. Inside she was dying. Her daughter was suffering. She, unlike most girls, did not think for a moment, she is a “girl”. She can be divorced or banished. She can be laughed at or mocked. She decided to build a school for special children and fight to prove everyone wrong. 10 years back, in shambles and broken world, far away from our rich lands and decorated houses in a village on the cross roads of city Gujrat, Jalal Pur Jattan.
She ran, fell, got back up, ran and fell. Countless failures, unending violence and heart breaking comments, did not melt her resolve. She is still running, taking classes, arguing with the land owner, the mafia of society and hurling back the stones. She is still standing guard to her fortress. She is still fighting alone. In the misery when people are attacking, she is still looking for people to reach out to her and help her.
Looking at her struggles, I question myself, how do God make people of this kind? How do He create their souls? What colors are there in His shelf? How does He think? Looking at her, makes me believe, Allah is beautiful. More beautiful than everything I have seen in my entire life. More lovely and amazing than all the skies, mountains and stories. Why would you not like to meet Him. Why would you not like to be the Musa or Muhammad. What stops you from one death on His way and then endless days, months and years with Him.
Nothing stops us from meeting our Allah. Nothing stopped Sajida from raising the slogan to build a school. Not people, ambushes and gun attacks. Not violence. Not hurling stones. Not logic and lack of money. She decided like Muhammad, she will fix the world. She built a school like Abu Ubaida. She wore her armour like Khalid. She just went out there in the deserts of Arab and stood her feet. No Persian, Roman or Abu Jahal, could defeat her in 10 years.
I talked to her, I found one person, as mad as me. As abnormal and as stupid as me. One person, I am going to fight for and raise funds for. I will build a school. That will lead to more schools. More Googles and Microsofts. I will fight like Zarrar across the tunnel and die like Ikrama. One day, when the world shakes and dies, I will stand closer to Muhammad, Abu Bakr, Umar and Ali. I will hug them, hold their hands and go to Jannat Ul Firdous. I will prove the world wrong. I will fight, have greatest meetups in the world, the best schools and the most following on twitter. I, with my sister Sajida, with my brothers following the Muhammad, will run, ride horses, take out our swords, wearing armour will conquer Jerusalem.
Just said it, the purpose of my life. To conquer Jerusalem, to unite muslims and to die in the way of Allah. I won’t stop. I won’t, until I die in the most beautiful’s way.
Today’s topic is spread over three sub topics
1. How we are going to build the School?
2. How you can help us?
3. Conclusion
1. How we are going to build the school
Check List by Pixabay
My strengths
I have been coding web for nearly 3 years. I have realised when I put a persistent effort into completing the work, it stands out. I have managed to build this website from scratch, white paper and black screens in 1 year. There are courses on zakatlists.com/school being run at my university, followed by these blogs under Quran Daily and recently constructed a dashboard for corona patients of Pakistan. Today is 100th day of writing blogs.
I am a very hard working person. I take my tasks very seriously. Writing these blogs also includes customised designing in Figma, development of bullets, quote commas beside quotations and manually writing Hex code for colours. It requires extreme hard work to balance the timings for writing the content, developing the web and giving due time to colleagues, friends and family. Just like Muhammad (PBUH), I am trying to balance all avenues of my life.
The Plan
Most works at the schools related to idea validation, designing floor plans and availability of property all already complete. Step wise details of the project are as under:-
Works already done
Class Room of Laurel Home School
1. No of students and Income
Sister Sajida, is running her school in a rented out building in Jalal Pur. She currently has 153 x students from her home town and 13 x Teachers. She is paying, Rs 50,000 a month, rent to the property owner. Details of school and expenses are written below:-
| Class | No of Students | Subjects | Monthly Income |
|---|---|---|---|
| Play & Nursery | 26 | English Urdu Math General Knowledge | Rs 26,000 |
| Prep | 20 | Rs 20,000 | |
| One | 15 | Rs 15,000 | |
| Two | 14 | Rs 14,000 | |
| Three | 13 | Rs 13,000 | |
| Four | 11 | Rs 11,000 | |
| Five | 14 | Rs 12,000 | |
| Six | 5 | Rs 5,500 | |
| Seven | 6 | Rs 7,000 | |
| Eight | 4 | Rs 5,000 | |
| Special | 13 | Rs 10,000 | |
| Quran Hifz | 12 | Quran English Urdu Math | Rs 5,000 |
| Staff Pays | Rs 1,20,000 | ||
| Building Rent | 88,000 | ||
| Miscellaneous Bills | 12,000 | ||
| Net Loss | - Rs 30,000 | ||
Expenses of Laurel Home School
2. Rotation of expenses
She is currently experiencing losses in her net income nearing Rs 30,000 a month (mentioned in table above). Her husband and colleagues are helping in running the school. In spite of all the hurdles, she is managing her bills, employees’ pay and rent of the building. Underneath it, is the support of Allah that has brought her to running a successful school today.
3. Availability of property
Presently the school is being run in a rented out building. She has relocated the entire setup of school four times in 10 years. As soon as the property owners see the traffic of students, the rikshaws dropping the students and business running, they ask for more. The "desire of more" of land owners is hurting the overall purpose of this project. There have been more than 500 admissions in the school. But the current number of students is halted at 153.
Continuous shifting and non availability of a proper place is making it difficult to finish the courses on a consistent basis. Mostly parents give up due to distant relocation of the school from previous location. Lack of a dedicated building is placing a toll on smooth running of the setup.
Plot owned by Sister Sajida
Sajida has inherited a plot of 12 Marlas from her parents. Subtract the road and boundary, it amounts to nearly 10.5 Marlas of space. The land is sufficient to start the construction works.
4. Drawing of the building
Left; Ground Floor Plan, Right; Basement Plan
The drawing of the school has been prepared. There are 4 x class rooms, 2 x offices, 1 x hall and 1 x store. The plan is limited to one floor only. However, second floor will be constructed if need arises.
Pending works
1. Market the fund raising request
This is our first attempt at marketing the Fund Raising request. After this blog is published I will make a dedicated banner for the school at zakatlists.com, visible right at the top of the page.
We will keep the entire process transparent; the flow of funds, drawings and construction works by routinely sharing the pictures at following places.
2. Make a banner on zakatlists
Zakatlists is getting a new header after this blog. It will show donations comparison with a link to this blog. As this project grows, I will be adding a dedicated page for the school on my website, zakatlists.
3. 3D drawing of the building
3D Drawing is a compulsory step before starting construction works. It will give us a clarity of our decisions on 2D floor plan and choice of furniture, colors and training aids. After the drawing and repeated iterations we will reach to calculating the exact amount of funds needed.
The progress of drawing will be shared on the twitter page.
4. Construction 🚧
Construction of this school is Sajida’s dream. One day the school will become a reality. The children will be laughing, swinging and glowing with the same amount of passion, energy and love, as of Sajida. It can take some months, even some years. But the core values of this struggle can not be forgotten. It is always “the journey” that matters.
A close friend of mine has been encouraging me these past few days, I would share its screen shot here.
You can find him on twitter
How you can help us
Hobby by JE Shoots
The next most important question for me, is how you can help me. To be honest, I need you. Without your assistance, I am unable to move forward. But to pin point the exact areas “How” I need you, please read following 4 points.
1. Encourage Me
I need a lot of encouragement. I am failing in most areas of my life. But while I am unable to give you a call, stay committed to my promises, lose some todos and miss the hits, the most important is, you do not focus on these areas. You do not focus on my negatives. You continuously send me encouraging messages. Just saying it, “You wrote good today” cheers me up and lights up my day.
2. Attend our Meetups
We are conducting 1 Meetup every month. There is no dis-honest discussion, loose talk or bad agenda. We are discussing our failures, struggles and hardships. Collectively, each day, we move a little forward to our goals. These meetups are becoming a source of inspiration to learn new skills, write blogs and bring in discipline to our life. Underneath these meetups, we are trying to connect with the Quran.
You can join our Meetup page on meetup.com at this link, to stay tuned to our announcements.
3. Start a hobby
Hobbies are colorful avenues of your life. These are superimposing factors to paint your relationships, professions and routine todos with good colors. We are linked with purposes and goals by default.
And when your Lord took from the children of Adam - from their loins - their descendants and made them testify of themselves, [saying to them], "Am I not your Lord?" They said, “Yes, we have testified.” [This] - lest you should say on the day of Resurrection, "Indeed, we were unaware of this.”
- Surah Al Araf verse 172
Every human being, is by default, a muslim. According to the verse above, the person roaming in jungles to living in cities, are all similar in their nature. They all know the right way of living their life. Some give up on easier attractions and some on harder choices. Successful are one, who never give up and finally find the truth.
Our truths can only be discovered after we make a resolve to finding the truth. Hobbies are these secret ingredients that gives you a purpose, direction and contentment.
Commit today to living your life to the fullest. Select a good hobby. Text me. It will boost my motivation to work harder to make these dreams a reality.
4. Donate
You can donate using following links 👇
Send your Paypal donations to this account in UK being run by sister Abida. She will forward me your donations. [email protected]
You can buy me few coffees on Buy Me a Coffee. This platform is helpful if you want to receive funds through credit card. Click here to go to coffees page.
You can also make a direct bank transfer on this account.
Account No. 00 47 0210109039,
IBAN. PK23ASCM0000470210109039,
Title. Qasim Ali,
Bank. Askari Bank
However, if you want to make transfer using easypaisa or similar services that require a phone number, you can send me a message. I will be really happy to talk to you.
Conclusion
Cherry by Craveiro Pics
Today is the 100th blog. in’sha’Allah, some day will be another number, when I will die. I might never find a chance to buy 1 brick for the school. I might never raise sufficient donations. I might fail. But just like today, the 100th day, I will not stop chasing my dreams. I will keep asking you for funds, to write blogs, to share your struggles and to discuss Quran. I will keep looking for inspiration from you. Just like Muhammad, I will keep striving hard to find the goodness, burried deep into the dust, in this world. I will not give up on people. I will not get angry. I will not hate. I will only live.
Surah Al Araf, 157 - 172