Help Spread Education ~Change begins at Home

The only way to bring about a bigger change is to educate people. Tell them the difference between right and wrong. Show them the thin line which separates good from bad and then let them make their own decisions.

Don’t leave the responsibility of educating your children to schools alone. Get yourself involved. And play your part.

Take them on a bus ride. So they experience the difficulties faced by people all over the country, everyday.

Give them pocket money, but don’t be overly generous. So they know what “living on a tight budget” feels like.

Teach them to read. Not just the course books. But novels/story books, encyclopedias, newspapers, magazines, comics, anything, everything. So they explore the worlds that go beyond ours. So that they learn to think out-of-the-box.

Make them understand the value of time. And the need of hard work.

Don’t let them get too close to TV, and especially news channels. So that they DON’T learn that human life is disposable.

Tell them your story so that they know where they come from.

Teach them to play. Pay with them. Teach them how to be a good sportsman.

Teach them how to swim, run, ride horses, sew, cook, clean. Give them an eclectic set of skills.

Treat your sons and daughters equally. Instill a spirit of confidence in your daughters, give them the courage to go out in this male-dominated society and excel.

Teach them about Islam. Teach them about other religions. So that they come to appreciate the value of religion; so that they respect not only their own religion but others as well. And more importantly, so that they become good Muslims.

Teach your children to be strong.

Don’t stop your children from cheating. Rather explain to them why it is wrong.

Don’t prohibit your children from doing certain things. Simply, sit with them and tell them what is wrong and what is right; so that they stop themselves from “wrong” and get attracted towards “right”. Make them realize the sufferings incurred by unjust decisions, so that they refrain from them. Do not try to make them good. Try to make them the best.

Teach them to love the country they live in and hold it in the highest of esteems, so they don’t grow up to become the defeated warriors that we are. So that they live with the will to take their country to the very top.

Teach them to share.

Teach them to see the good in people, yet not get tricked by deceiving facades.

Teach them to put all their faith on Allah and Allah alone.

With this you just become a commendable parent; or aunt; or uncle. But what about the so many children who do not think about school. Who don’t consider education a necessity or to be more correct who don’t have the luxury to consider education a necessity and hence are fooled by empty promises of roti, kapra, makan.

Not everyone can afford to make schools and manage them. But there are so many non-profit organizations that are shouldering the responsibility of educating the future of this nation and doing praise worthy job. But they do need assistance and support. You can do that by donating your time, or money, or both.

To name a few organizations:

       1) The Citizen's Foundation (with the slogan soch se taqdeer tak)

       2) Namal College (Imran Khan’s brainchild)

Research on them. Decide if they are doing a good enough job. And if they are, allocate a small amount of your monthly income for them. Donate every month, switch amongst them each month if you find more than one deserving organization.

See if they take volunteers.

There can be more than one ways of helping out. Think of what you can do, and then do it.

Explore.

Chip-in your penny’s worth.

Speaking of the slogan soch se taqdeer tak; do understand that mere education is no guarantee of an open mind. Minds need to be opened. With us all grown up; we tend to think that we ourselves are open minded and everyone else has “choti soch”. However, we cannot be more wrong. We need to realize that each of us has some space for improvement. And we should always be willing to improve.

Do not just educate children. Educate yourself and your friends and your colleagues.

Make people around you realize the importance of reading. Get them interested in it, because education cannot just be received from academic institutions. It is not limited to institutes only. There is only so much you can learn there, the rest you need to do yourself. The education you receive from institutes needs to be polished and kept up to date.

Whoever said that you can only excel in one field of study. Work in more than one field and excel. Challenge your limits, go beyond what you think is possible.

Reading up on other fields will only help in brining innovative ideas to your own field. It will open your mind and will motivate you to bring about a more than welcome change.

Read up on nations who brought about a change in their country peacefully. Adapt their traits.

Read up on Islam. It is the only religion which can provide us salvation. Adapt the teachings of Islam. It teaches tolerance.

Sit with your friends and discuss the ways you can bring about a change.

As an idea, consider this; look around and find a student who needs financial assistance. Then ask your friends to contribute. See how much all of you together can come up with each month. And then extend your help.

Ask the university you completed your bachelors from if they have a student you can help with in paying fees.

Although scholarships based on merit are supposed to be for any student who excels whether or not he needs it or not. But if you are a student, or a parent of a student who can afford tuition fees easily, then donate your scholarship money to some other student who needs it.

Buy books and donate them to libraries so that everyone can benefit from that book.

Go in groups to government schools and ask them if they need your assistance. If you have any kind of skill, you can ask the school to arrange a class or a short course where you can impart your skill to students free of cost.

Again, sit with your friends and think what you can do about the sorry-full state of education in our country.

We have done enough talking. Bickering doesn’t get you anywhere.

It’s time we get up and do something ourselves and be the change we want in our country.

Share your knowledge and ideas with others. This road cannot be travelled alone for long. Get other like minded people to accompany you. This way the journey you start alone will eventually become a caravan.