– Sahar Khan
Raipur, Mar. 2: Human Welfare Foundation, a non-government organisation based in New Delhi, in pursuit of one of its humanitarian programmes has distributed student scholarships to 65 orphans who came from different districts of Chhattisgarh.
The event was held at Al-Falah Tower, Byron Bazar in Raipur. As many as 20 out of the 65 orphans were from the state capital.
The Foundation’s orphan care programme is dedicated to providing quality assistance for the needy students irrespective of their religion, creed or gender. The deprived students were given scholarships for education in schools and some in colleges. The students usually use the amount they get as scholarships to deposit their fees.
After screening deserving orphans on merits that are largely based on their academic performance and potential, they are given Rs.18,000 annually, distributed in two instalments of Rs.9000 each.
The Chief Guest of the programme Mohammed Shahid, a retired IFS officer, exhorted the students to make the effective use of their time to pursue their dreams and successful career. He advised the students to keep from big screens (television) and small screens (mobile phones) that eventually turned into a sort of addiction for children and school or college-going students. Instead, keep pens and books close to oneself to succeed, he added.
As Special Guest of Honour, Asst Editor and Chhattisgarh Head Ejaz Kaiser motivated the beneficiary students, suggesting that self-discipline with hard work helps everyone to achieve their goals while knowledge remains vital to evolve thinking skills and make learning easier. He said the problems and difficulties should not stop them (orphan children) from moving forward in life and take every chance to learn new things with firm belief in oneself.
The occasion chaired by Shafeeq Ahmed, president of Jamaat-e-Islami Hind Chhattisgarh, felt that deprived orphan children deserve special attention to grow as healthy and responsible citizens.
The HWF coordinator Zahoor Ahmed informed that they have been consistently endeavouring to improve the quality of life of orphan children who have lost either one or both parents.
While distributing cheques to the students, Mr. Ahmed persuaded them to energise themselves to accomplish meaningful things in life. He asked the students to make the best use of their potential and the support they get. He suggested ways to engage in productive activities and performance goals.
