Muslims & Progress

A “home office” through ICTs could help overcome Muslim women’s perpetual cycle of poverty and social exclusion.


The rapid growth in Information and Communication Technology (ICT) in India is undeniable. Various communities, not just depending on the government, are investing in the ICT, so that they are not left behind. What about the Muslim community? Is ICT revolution bypassing them? Not exactly.


The community is too slow and directionless with respect to ICT. Considering the socio-economic scenario in the community, ICT can be a boon for Muslim women from the deprived sections. Also more and more Muslim women are thinking of opting out of the rat-race in favour of less stress and more quality time. Double incomes have also prompted parents to evaluate career ambitions and look at (possibly) less lucrative jobs which lets one stay at home. Flexibility is another attraction: full-time, part-time or contractual employment offers the freedom of individual work schedules.


There are a number of initiatives both within and outside the country that can act as models for the community. Let us focus on two initiatives, one outside the country and one in India.


Malaysia is pre-dominantly a Muslim country, which has made great strides in the field of educating women. Malaysian women, through tele-working have gained positive entry into the information economy.


An excellent example for Indian Muslims is the Mothers for Mothers network in Malaysia, formed in 1998, started as a voluntary group of mothers from multi-ethnic communities. Members of the network were initially involved in women-connecting-women activities to promote the concept of working from home, especially for homemakers who need the economic empowerment to uplift their gender status. The group had to overcome public prejudice about housewives who did not contribute to society and helped its members gain self-esteem through mutual support activities.


Moreover, those women who chose to work from home to balance family life and career were exploited with low paying assignments and belonged to the informal sector, with little assistance for personal development. The core group then realised that an e-Networking platform through various access points was necessary for the stakeholders’ development.


Mothers for Mothers network, trilingual portal, (English, Bahasa Malaysia and Mandarin) www.ehomemakers.net, links homemakers and home-workers all over Malaysia into an e-community, bound together by common interests in working from home, motherhood, homemaking and issues on economic, social, environmental, family and gender development. Interactive features for building a web community include a section that allows members to post for free their home-based products and services, a forum, and a buddy system to promote group-help. The portal is the only one in Malaysia linking and providing assistance to homemakers.


The second initiative in March 2003 was the Datamation Foundation, Community Multi-Media Centre (CMC) in Babul-uloom Madrasa located in Seelampur-Zaffrabad, a predomi-nantly Muslim neighbourhood on the fringes of North-East Delhi.


The objectives of establishing CMC in Seelampur were to test the hypothesis that, after attaining a level of empowerment, language or education are not barriers for the Muslim women to access ICTs for unleashing their ‘latent’ communication needs, apart from a need to ‘creatively’ express themselves. The Project wanted to further ensure that by a systematic delivery of mentoring, counselling and training materials in the local languages, it is possible for the semi-literate and neo-literate, marginalised Muslim women to earn sustainable livelihoods enabled by ICTs. Till date, the project has reached out to more than 2000 women from the Seelampur community. The CMC was located within the premises of the Madrasa instead of a public place. The women were provided separate entry to the institution. Extensive community mobilisation was done with the help of a Mentor Muslim Mother who reached out to the community for enrollment of the women in the ICT Centre.


Thus, a community mobilisation drive commenced, ensuring enlistment of the women as “canvassers” and “community mobilisers”. The project deployed over 40 different skills and vocational modules ranging from tailoring, embroidery, candle making, liquid soap, management of courier and tiffin centres, stationary items, paper bags etc.


The Foundation enabled formation of the Self-Help Groups after the women had completed the learning on the modules. The Foundation also started the process of identifying commercial opportunities for the beneficiaries of the project. Participation in various exhibitions, events, apart from direct marketing of the arts and crafts produced by Seelampur Muslim Women was organised. A portal www.seelampurmart.org has been set up for the marketing of Seelampur arts, crafts and services.


Such projects can be replicated in India by the various Muslim social and welfare organisations. What is required is access to computers with a good bandwidth, and an honest, committed team of women who want to learn about tele-working to form the core team who will learn to manage a portal.