The holy month of Ramzan is not only about fasting but also charity and while many do what they can to help the poor, Dr Sayed Habeeb, author of several self-help books and a well known leadership coach, has made it his life’s mission to make the lives of the less fortunate better not only during Ramzan, when he distributes ‘Eid kits’, but all through the year
The more you give, the more blessings you receive, believes Dr Syed Habeeb, who donates groceries to the poor during the holy month of Ramazan and is an all round do-gooder , helping slumdwellers and their children make a better life for themselves, whether through vocational training or tuitions. A resident of Maruthi Seva Nagar, and a well known leadership coach, who hobnobs with the likes of world renowned leadership coach, Anthony Robbins, Dr Habeeb is the author of several self -help books and founder of the NGO , The United Foundation (TUF), which he started in 2007. He now has 300 volunteers lending their time for social service.
It all started 11 years ago, when he with his wife visited Malaysia and came across a group of college volunteers distributing soup among the poor. "I was inquisitive and on talking to people, learnt that this was a Soup Kitchen, where volunteers made the soup and distributed it among the poor. It is a tradition, which is still being followed. I was moved and when I came back home, I wanted to start something similar to the Soup Kitchen to help feed the hungry people of the city," Dr Habeeb recounts.
With the help of a few friends he did a recce of almost every major slum in the city like EWS in Koramangala, Rajendra Nagar, DJ Halli and Seva Nagar and began collecting data about widows, elderly couples and the very poor, who might need more help than others. "We picked 180 families, mainly from Rajendra Nagar, where some of the very poor live and now give them ration worth Rs 700 to Rs 800 every month," he says. But not stopping there , he decided to do more for those who struggle for even a single meal a day, and help them celebrate Ramazan. "We identified around 1,200 Muslim families and now give them ration worth Rs 2,000 ,which they can depend on for the entire month of Ramazan," Mr Habeeb reveals.
But seeing that the city has several families, which cannot enjoy a feast on Eid -ul-Fitr, the festival that marks the end of Ramazan, he decided to give them an " Eid kit" worth Rs 1,300 containing a kilogramme of mutton, good quality rice, khova, spices and so on which they could cook and enjoy. "This Eid kit was planned as we found the families could not afford to buy mutton, which is expensive. People always think giving away leftovers or old clothes is charity, but for me giving the poor what I'd like to eat myself is real charity," he explains. But Dr Habeeb did not stop at just donating food and grocery to the poor. On his visits to the slums, he noticed that the children there had a lot of untapped potential, which was not receiving the right encouragement and this set him thinking.
" I heard that the children went to a nearby government school only to have the mid-day meal it provided. I also saw that they were intelligent and able to grasp things quickly. But I noticed that from 5 pm to 7 pm until the adults came back home from work, they had a lot of free time on their hands and felt they could fall into back company," he recalls. His solution was to provide the children tuition at this time under a programme called 'Ants to Giants'. The students began to trickle in and they gradually began to show more interest in their education. And now they are doing so well that this year 111 of the slum children appeared for the SSLC exam and of them 21 passed with distinction and 36 got a first class. "Our team of volunteers has grown and now we have tuition centres in all the major slums," says the good Samaritan with satisfaction.
Besides this, come weekends and the volunteers teach soft skills, which have helped several of the slumdwellers find jobs. And Dr Habeeb has found even more innovative ways of helping the poor. For the past two years, he has helped them build houses on whatever little plot of land they own under a programme called Gift A Home. "Till now, we have constructed around 31 houses. We build them only if the land documents are valid and the families don't have a proper roof over their heads. There are so many families like these in the city," he says.
All the good work that he and his volunteers do is funded mainly through donations. " We have volunteers, who provide the kits and rich donors, who help us financially. We also pool in our earnings at times. We don't really bother about funds as people are willing to help us help the poor," he smiles.
