1. Visit nearby areas around you and find out how many illiterate muslim girl are there
this will help you to get an overall estimate of the amount of work you have to do or the hours you have to devote. By doing this you can also get some more enthusiastic and like minded people like you to help themselves and others too. hope after your survey you can make a team of 3-4 girls who can contribute somewhat towards the education of others
2. Create awareness
this can be considered as the most important step and assuming you have got 3-4 volunteers to do this, now all of you can specify your targeted areas. Visit houses personally meet parents tell them your story, how your parents are and what are the benefits of getting educated. Basically emphasise on education is just not about earning money, its about manners, thoughts, etiquettes and morals
convince them and ask if they want to make their girls educated if they do agree make sure the girl join back the schools, if they wont agree then tell them you will come and teach her and try involve the mother too in education so that they will feel good. Start convincing women of a family.
3. Analyse your data carefully
by this you can easily group the families make a chart of how many families agree to continue their girls's education and how many families need a re-counselling, how many families agree to educate girls if you can go to their homes and teach them, families who don't want to educate girls at all and more divisions you can make according to you.
4. Action plan
the best way to solve problem is to begin. So as you have already analysed your data now see the distribution of the family. Now target where the density was high to educate their girls and women if you will go personally and teach them. Being practical you are 3-4 girls and you also have a life, so target three higher density areas and for lower density areas you guys can visit on weekends, and also on weekends try and aware more people.
people will believe you if you will personally meet them and tell them your story giving examples and convincing female part of the family.
5. Growth time
you efforts wont go in vain if you educate a girl and then you see automatically it will spread your idea will spread and your impact area will increase then its upto you to manage, you first follow first 4 steps and you will realise the change.
and seriously the education status among muslims is pathetic, I am happy to see people like you coming forward to help.
From my personal experience, I feel that Muslims look at most other communities with a lot of distrust. There is rampant antisemitism (sometimes quite openly in mosques and other religious gatherings) and many conspiracy theories abound among Muslims about the intentions of the Jews to annihilate Muslims. This also extends to Hindus, but it is not expressed as openly as in the case of Jews.
Vicious cycle
But then, I digress. The point I am trying to make is that if a person tries to reform Muslims, they will most probably not be able to do that. I would love for myself to be proved wrong in the comments, but as far as I know, there has hardly been a successful initiative to reform the Muslim community from outside it.
In fact, even if you are a Muslim who is trying to break away from traditions, you will be quickly decried.
This stems from a lack of education and exposure, which is basically the problem that you are trying to address, so it is a vicious cycle.
Swim with the tide
Thus, the only way to effect change in the community is to swim with the tide. But just that is not enough, you need to swim fast and strong. What I mean is that you need to join organization that works specifically for this cause or start one of your own. Spreading awareness and all is fine, but you need to set up the infrastructure and opportunities for the girls to make use of. Once you do that, I suggest you do the following:
Get strong and level headed men to support your initiative, that way you will be taken more seriously. The best way would be to get a local Muslim politician/leader to support your initiative. I don't condone sexism, but frankly, that's how things work.
Get as many women to join you as possible. It will be much much easier to get the women to come if it is the women who are teaching/instructing. It is slightly easier for Muslim women to convince their parents/husband/brothers to let them go somewhere if it's all female.
Teach them how to use computers effectively and teach them to speak. Muslim women from poor families usually don't have a platform for speaking out, in the limited environment of the home, there is very little exchange of ideas and the intellectual growth of the women is stunted. Giving them a platform to express their opinions and the necessary tools to form them (internet) will go a long way in opening their minds to other bigger opportunities.
Give them career guidance. Tell them what to do and guide them about the numerous schemes that the government has put in place for them. teach them English and give them books to read. Get your friends to donate old books and comics. Not so many magazines as novels and comics.
Try to find loopholes in the rules of conduct to allow freedom for the women and support your arguments with hadith and verses from the Quran. A pious Muslim might not listen to reason, but will often give in when the religious scriptures are invoked.
When a group of Muslims starts calling you immoral, don't fight them, invite them for dialogue and accept their suggestions if they don't affect you much. Usually they will not have much to say and you will get the support of the community because you listened to them.
Answers & Comments
Answer:
1. Visit nearby areas around you and find out how many illiterate muslim girl are there
this will help you to get an overall estimate of the amount of work you have to do or the hours you have to devote. By doing this you can also get some more enthusiastic and like minded people like you to help themselves and others too. hope after your survey you can make a team of 3-4 girls who can contribute somewhat towards the education of others
2. Create awareness
this can be considered as the most important step and assuming you have got 3-4 volunteers to do this, now all of you can specify your targeted areas. Visit houses personally meet parents tell them your story, how your parents are and what are the benefits of getting educated. Basically emphasise on education is just not about earning money, its about manners, thoughts, etiquettes and morals
convince them and ask if they want to make their girls educated if they do agree make sure the girl join back the schools, if they wont agree then tell them you will come and teach her and try involve the mother too in education so that they will feel good. Start convincing women of a family.
3. Analyse your data carefully
by this you can easily group the families make a chart of how many families agree to continue their girls's education and how many families need a re-counselling, how many families agree to educate girls if you can go to their homes and teach them, families who don't want to educate girls at all and more divisions you can make according to you.
4. Action plan
the best way to solve problem is to begin. So as you have already analysed your data now see the distribution of the family. Now target where the density was high to educate their girls and women if you will go personally and teach them. Being practical you are 3-4 girls and you also have a life, so target three higher density areas and for lower density areas you guys can visit on weekends, and also on weekends try and aware more people.
people will believe you if you will personally meet them and tell them your story giving examples and convincing female part of the family.
5. Growth time
you efforts wont go in vain if you educate a girl and then you see automatically it will spread your idea will spread and your impact area will increase then its upto you to manage, you first follow first 4 steps and you will realise the change.
and seriously the education status among muslims is pathetic, I am happy to see people like you coming forward to help.
BEST OF LUCK
hope it helps u dear ☺️✨✨✨
Verified answer
Answer:
From my personal experience, I feel that Muslims look at most other communities with a lot of distrust. There is rampant antisemitism (sometimes quite openly in mosques and other religious gatherings) and many conspiracy theories abound among Muslims about the intentions of the Jews to annihilate Muslims. This also extends to Hindus, but it is not expressed as openly as in the case of Jews.
Vicious cycle
But then, I digress. The point I am trying to make is that if a person tries to reform Muslims, they will most probably not be able to do that. I would love for myself to be proved wrong in the comments, but as far as I know, there has hardly been a successful initiative to reform the Muslim community from outside it.
In fact, even if you are a Muslim who is trying to break away from traditions, you will be quickly decried.
This stems from a lack of education and exposure, which is basically the problem that you are trying to address, so it is a vicious cycle.
Swim with the tide
Thus, the only way to effect change in the community is to swim with the tide. But just that is not enough, you need to swim fast and strong. What I mean is that you need to join organization that works specifically for this cause or start one of your own. Spreading awareness and all is fine, but you need to set up the infrastructure and opportunities for the girls to make use of. Once you do that, I suggest you do the following:
Get strong and level headed men to support your initiative, that way you will be taken more seriously. The best way would be to get a local Muslim politician/leader to support your initiative. I don't condone sexism, but frankly, that's how things work.
Get as many women to join you as possible. It will be much much easier to get the women to come if it is the women who are teaching/instructing. It is slightly easier for Muslim women to convince their parents/husband/brothers to let them go somewhere if it's all female.
Teach them how to use computers effectively and teach them to speak. Muslim women from poor families usually don't have a platform for speaking out, in the limited environment of the home, there is very little exchange of ideas and the intellectual growth of the women is stunted. Giving them a platform to express their opinions and the necessary tools to form them (internet) will go a long way in opening their minds to other bigger opportunities.
Give them career guidance. Tell them what to do and guide them about the numerous schemes that the government has put in place for them. teach them English and give them books to read. Get your friends to donate old books and comics. Not so many magazines as novels and comics.
Try to find loopholes in the rules of conduct to allow freedom for the women and support your arguments with hadith and verses from the Quran. A pious Muslim might not listen to reason, but will often give in when the religious scriptures are invoked.
When a group of Muslims starts calling you immoral, don't fight them, invite them for dialogue and accept their suggestions if they don't affect you much. Usually they will not have much to say and you will get the support of the community because you listened to them.
All the best!