Saturday, December 11, 2004

'Do it right the first time'

Recently, I've been spending quite a bit of time, studying with a particular friend. The most striking thing about his personality is his extreme confidence. I wont call it over-confidence, because he definitely has a reason, and really knows what he talks about. Yesterday a few hours before our exam, we got started on the issue of the situation of the Islamic elementary and high schools in GTA and Peel Region. He complained immensely of how careless the management is, the tuition of these private schools is so high, and the conditions of these schools are as bad as those of a factory. I kept stressing that the problem is with lack of funds, it takes a HUGE amount of capital to get a school up and running, and a continous supply of funds just to maintain it once its setup. He listened to my point, but kept emphasizing that if its lack of funds, then they should have thought about it before they started a school. Moreover, the board of directors are just volunteers, and they're not putting in their best. The kids might as well study in public schools, because this kind of an environment is just destroying them. And then he remarkably stated 'Do it right the first time- learn from others mistake, don't make them yourself!'
Hmm. Absolutely true. When you are an onlooker and make comments by observing, then you're really not doing justice to what you're commenting on. In other words, if you yourself were to build a school, go through the entire process- from securing property, fundraising, publicity, budgeting, government approval, buying computers, gymnasium blackboards, furniture, and every facility, designing the building itself, construction, power, water, selecting and hiring teachers, establishing bank account transactions, and then maintenance of the building....organising board of director and teacher meetings, school functions, open houses....and a million other things- you'd probably wince at a comment like the one he made.
It's very easy to point fingers- I know the people who actually set up these schools, and other services for Muslims- they didn't just do it for the fun of it- they wanted their time and effort to be worth it, they had dreams for a change, but limited resources (and possibly time) @ the same time, conflict of interest with the people they are interacting with, or drainage of energy in a cause that doesn't seem to be taking off well, but I'm sure they are, Inshallah getting there. They had dreams of changing the environment for Muslim kids- to give them an My friend is interested in setting up a school himself- I told him he's going to get the same type of criticism, but knowing him, his experience, endeavor for perfection, hopefully he'll be better off when he does it.


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