Dear Friends,

Last year you were generous enough to help a cause that is dear to all our hearts, the creation of an English-medium higher secondary school for girls at the Calcutta Muslim Orphanage. A brief recap. More than five years ago, when I was privileged to become a part of the honorary management of this institution, one of the oldest orphanages in India, I persuaded the committee to lift their horizons, and open to our orphan children a new world through modern technology and an English education. Four years ago we opened a computer center from which now an average of seventy children get a certificate after passing a government-approved diploma course: it is a passport to a job.

There is nothing, my friends, trust me, more uplifting that to see the glow in the eyes of a child of this center as she accepts her degree with such legitimate pride in her achievement. She has crossed a horizon that was once beyond her imagination.

We were privileged in the past year when President Abdul Kalam, India's head of state, visited our orphanage, saw the computer center and expressed his joy in the change that was touching young lives.

We had a larger dream: An English-medium, higher secondary school for these girls. On 25 April this year, at 8 a.m., this school began classes from nursery and kindergarten to Class VI in its own, newly constructed building. You generosity played an important part in the realization of this dream.

The school is called, as the signage proclaims, the A.K.Fazlul Haque Girls Higher Secondary School. My assistant, Shveta Syal (who is far more technically competent than I am) will send a few pictures of the school to indicate the joy and involvement of the children and the commitment of the teachers (many of them are doing voluntary work, but we also have a full-time staff being paid professional salaries since we believe that the children deserve a school that is a symbol of quality). Our children, even those at the nursery level, know far better than privileged kids the value of an English education. There is a new confidence in their voice, and a new sense of themselves as they soak up knowledge that was once outside beyond their dreams.

This year we shall construct a top-of-the-line library and playground, which I will fund in memory of my mother.

I appeal to you to open your hearts again. As I said last year, there is nothing called small and big in charity. Every rupee, every pound, every dollar adds something invaluable to lives that we must lift out of helplessness.

I know that many of you already have your favorite charities, and it would be perfectly understandable if you felt that you should continue to concentrate all your generosity where you already do.

I commend to all of you a line from the Qur’an, which is the motto of our school: “He who gives to orphans lends to God”.

Thank you for your patience,

And cheers,

M.J. Akbar