According to her mother Aatamma, Maksudan, barely into her teens, will most likely be married off, just like her elder sister. But not if Lok Jumbish, a non-governmental organisation (NGO) implementing a primary education campaign in Kaman block through Government schools, has its way. It showed the way with Maksudan, and now there are as many as 28 Meo girls in her school out of a total strength of 70. Maiman is studying in Class V along with her brother and another girl, Bilkees. When they pass out, they will head for further education to a secondary school a couple of kilometres away in Akata.Maksudan plans to join them then and finish her education.

Her yearning to learn is clear proof of how much Lok Jumbish has contributed. Kaman block is a part of Mewat region and around 70 per cent of its population comprises Meos. A Muslim community, their primary occupation is agriculture and education has never been a priority. Two years ago, when the NGO started its operations here, the literacy rate in the block was 29 per cent and among the Meos, only 19 per cent. While the female literacy was 9 per cent in the block, among Meos it was negligible. Of the 204 villages in the block, there was no literate person in 22 villages and no literate woman in 47 villages. A comparison of figures for the past four years shows the change that has come about. From 11 per cent in 1995, the proportion of girls in schools (up to Class V) has gone up to 48 per cent in general and 79 per cent in schools where Lok Jumbish is working. In Bagichi village, the number of girl students from the Meo community is now 28 out of70, against no girls out of 12 students four years ago. The secondary school at Akata now has 98 girls, of whom 79 are from the Meo community in a total of 286 students. It has only 13 Meo girls among the 40 female students in a total of 159 in 1995.

Lok Jumbish had to put in two years of sustained work for this revolution. The most difficult part was convincing the people that education was a necessity, especially for the girl child, and that it was not an attack on their identity or a disguised attempt to convert them.

Rita Chaturvedi, a Lok Jumbish project officer, says when the scheme was sought to be introduced in 1993 among the Meos, particularly among the girls, there were no takers. ``They said education had no role to play in their girl's lives. If any girl wanted to study, the dini taleem (religious teachings) in the madrasas were enough for her,'' Chaturvedi recalls. So Lok Jumbish tried to convince mosques where madrasas were being run to impart school education along with dini taleem. Butwhile a talk with maulvis got them an approval in principle, the plan proved difficult to implement. Reluctant to be the first to usher schools into their mosques, each maulvi passed the buck on, telling Lok Jumbish to start with ``that other masjid first''.

The NGO then realised that one major fear of the Meos was that by learning Hindi, their children would end up Hindus. Sharief Ahmad, a project supervisor and a maulvi himself, says it transpired them they would not mind sending their children to schools if they were also taught Urdu. This was agreed to. Advertisements were placed, Urdu teachers selected, trained and appointed, and enrolment started.

``In many cases, we were fortunate to get some maulvis as Urdu teachers. If we belonged to the local masjid, it also solved the problem of adjusting timings of the school and the madrasa to enable children to attend both. Some villages chose to get rid of the maulvi in the masjid for the maulvi who was teaching in the school,''Chaturvedi says.

But theproblem of convincing the community to send girls to school still persisted. A female supervisor, Sanjida Habib, says she cited her own example as an educated Muslim girl to persuade the people. ``They said the girls had to remain in purdah,'' Ahmed recalls. ``But we told them that the purdah did not apply to girls of this age group. Even if one practised purdah, it was for mature girls and women whom these menfolk instead sent for work to towns, fields and jungles.''

Having crossed that barrier too, Lok Jumbish is now trying to ensure that the girls who are enrolled stay enrolled. ``We have to keep track of girls in every village. Parents can withdraw them any time,'' Chaturvedi points out. The girls also continue to bear the brunt of family responsibilities. Those involved in the campaign say it would take a generation -- till these children grow up and have families of their own -- for the change they brought to become lasting. But who would have thought even this much possible in Kaman four years ago?In more ways than one, the winds of change are already blowing here. Official figures show that the Rajiv Gandhi Swam Jayanti Pathshala scheme, under which 30 schools were set up in the block just last month, has managed to attract 1,400 students. Up to Class II, these schools have been set up in villages which have at least 25 children, with no school within a radius of one kilometre.

Closer home, there is a new found concern for hygiene and cleanliness. The utensils are cleaner, as are the houses. Inside many of them, Maksudans are smiling.