Alwar Mewat Institute of Education & Development (AMIED)
We are a voluntary, non-profit and non-government organization, registered under societies act 1958. AMIED firmly believes that education plays a significant role in socio-economic development and cultural enrichment of the society and individuals. We believe in equal opportunity, irrespective of social status, class, caste, religion and gender in all walks of life especially in the realm of education, to ensure non–discriminatory and equal distribution of grains of development especially that of education, and thus Knowledge does not necessarily remains confined to only a privileged few. Our experience of working with Meo Muslims has revealed that there is an urgent need for quality education for these excluded children. Thus the broader vision of our organization reveals around the work with the excluded and deprived communities including Meos to bring all the communities on a common platform. So that they can collectively participate in the process of self development and development of Nation in general. The challenge in working with such excluded communities is to understand and resolve the different perceptions
That surround the two notions of education –religious and modern .It is a challenging task and requires a scientifically correct and practical approach which may help us in influencing the interior chambers of Moe Psyche. To begin with we have developed an ongoing process that starts with understanding entire problem in system and we believe in working with all the factors/actors responsible for the problem with in a system. In this system we work with Children, parents, and teachers as direct targets and with the environment that surrounds them. In environment we work with Govt officials at various levels, Local community people, Community based organizations, Religious heads, other govt; and non govt; agencies working with same aims and objectives. We also work on ensuring wide spread awareness among people and linking people with various govt and NGO schemes and policies. We also work on various advocacy issues at various levels directed towards ensuring benefits for people from various laws and legislations, guarantees and provisions placed there by Govt for the welfare of people especially in the sector of education, We also encourage people to send their representations to elected representatives and higher govt officials to demand their rights and to highlight and get their recommendations and demands fulfilled. We work very closely with communities by being a part of them to ensure positive and visible change. We consider child as the centre of our focus and all the activities will be directed towards development.
MEWAT Area of Rajasthan has a low literacy rate of 58.16% of total literacy having 39.98% of Female literacy rate and accounts for a large number (50%) of children still left out of the formal education system. Though significant progress has been made in the enrolment of children in the schools, the dropout rate is still very high with nearly 87 per cent. The existence of severe caste and gender discrimination further marginalizes a large population of children. Meo girls are easily allowed by their parents to go and avail “Dini Taleem” (religious teaching) in the mosques. But when it comes to govt schools and modern education these girls and sometimes boys are also restricted Therefore, there were no takers for the Government primary education because the community feared that sending their children to a regular school would mean an attack on their identity or that it was an attempt to convert them. Besides, efforts towards enrollment of children in the school have resulted in low learning rates of children and lack of security of the children.

Convinced by the basis of grass root experiences, AMIED realized that formal educational set up and mainstream education system was either not available to these children in rural areas which in turn resulted in wide spread apathy in the rural communities toward the education of their children. We started our work in some villages of Mewat area 7 years in the rural area of Alwar District with a mission to transform and empower people by focusing on upliftment of the educational Status of various deprived, delinquent, divorced, deviant and poor sections of the society with a special focus on improving quality education and education to every one.
During these years a tremendous performance was shown by all our staff and other people associated with the organization. After having field visits, implementing various programmes and activities, conducting various research studies and interaction with the people at ground level we feel very good to say that people have started fighting for the rights of their children. But there are still so many children who are either only enrolled on papers or have left the school .After experiencing all this in the field it was realized that there are still so many challenges for which we need to get together and strengthen our selves and our organization and get ready for bigger challenges. So that we can stand by our own people who are so close to us and with whom we share a common identity. Presently we are working in three blocks of Alwar district namely Ramgarh, Kishen garh and Tijara where we have adoted more than 110 villages. All the three blocks are highly dominated by Meo Muslims and. Although people associated with AMEID try their best to reach out to the people on the ground and in very interiors of the area but the severity of the problem and bad conditions in all spheres especially educational backwardness of the people of this area further complicates the problem. In addition to all this the geographic condition, poor outreach of governmental services and lack of awareness among people makes it a real challenge for our people We do this by involving the services of professionals, youth, local volunteers and services of other government and non government agencies. Best quality of our staff is their hard wok, dedication, volunteerism, love for this good work, leadership, respect for community and all religions, casts, creeds, and sexes, cultural sensitivity and accountability for their work, which makes a path for our work of helping the needy and underserved and excluded children of the Mewat area towards the grand success.
Broad Aim:
Our aim is to help excluded children of various deprived sections of society to acquire purposeful education and career guidance, and also to inculcate moral principle among children and help them to bring up as useful citizens of the country. A special focus will be on Mewat community of Rajasthan.

This post was submitted by Noormohammad.