IL Mission provides financial assistance to students in education whose families no longer have the sufficient means to pay the required fees. We believe that everybody should be given the best possible chances in education, no matter what their backgrounds or starting points.
Fifteen years ago, a small group of like-minded individuals joined together to voluntarily help poor meritorious students of the Kashmir valley, who in their view, possess the potential to excel in their educational careers. These individuals have been supporting various social activities with a special preference to the education causes, as individual and as a group. The support was extended to the deserving students directly and through local NGOs operating at the grass root level. However, their preference was always to help the community to uplift their educational standards by providing various forms of assistance including the financial support. In 2016, they contemplated to give this individual group, a proper shape and structure and to involve more people in this noble cause. To provide it a further impetus, they formed a group under the name Kashmir Educational Support, now operating as IL Mission.
The core objective of IL Mission is to help the poor and needy meritorious students to continue their education and to enhance the educational standards of the community as a whole.
IL Mission constitutes of two teams i.e., Ground Team (GT), which is responsible for identifying students at the ground level and recommend the deserving candidates for financial support. The second team, Finance Team (FT), approves the cases (students recommended by Ground Team) and arranges the required financial assistance for them.
A clear four stage process helps IL Mission to extend support to deserving students.
Ground Team identifies candidates that meet the eligibility criteria for getting any support from IL Mission. The credentials of the candidates are verified by the team at this stage. Eligible students pursuing higher education (above 10th Standard) are usually preferred at this stage.
A candidate may apply directly via our website by creating a profile and upload supporting documents, such as course details, fees requirements, and academic records or they can approach IL Mission and the Ground Team directly. At this stage, Ground Team will verify all details supplied by the candidate and undertake background checks before recommending eligible candidate to the Finance Team.
Finance Team thoroughly evaluates candidates recommended by the Ground Team. The team conduct their own due diligence at this stage and may contact candidate and the institution directly to cross-check veracity of the case. The decision of approval or rejection at this stage is then communicated to the candidate. All approved candidates are assigned a Case ID which is then used for all public fund-raising appeals and all other personal details of the candidate are kept anonymous to safeguard their privacy.
Founding members of IL Mission arrange finances for the approved case either directly from their own resources and/or by raising funds through an appeal. Donors may make a pledge for the donation amount requested through an appeal and deposit the same directly into the bank account of candidate’s educational institution. Proof of remittance is provided by the donor to IL Mission, copy of which is sent to the candidate.
Furthermore, the candidate arranges proof of receipt from the institution, which is then forwarded to the donor.
The governance process in place is intended to freely and fairly evaluate each candidate at every stage of the process. Most importantly, at the Identification Stage, a candidate must be recommended by at least two people known to the candidate (one of them being a senior citizen) and at the Approval Stage, a case must be approved by two out of three authorised approvers in the Finance Team.
Any candidate who has a good track record of previous performance and is from economically disadvantageous background is eligible for the support. Also, those candidates who hail from the far flung or backward areas of Kashmir and have no access to other resources (such as scholarships, availability of local colleges or teachers etc.) are eligible.
Our donors mainly constitute individual members of the society. At times, some NGO groups come forward for the help of the students. Donors are based in Kashmir and outside Kashmir as well. They may directly sponsor a case published in the fund-raising appeal or pledge the amount through IL Mission (admins) discreetly so that their privacy is upheld.
We respect confidentiality of our candidates and donors and take utmost care in safeguarding their privacy. All personal details are kept anonymous and both candidates and donors are identified by a unique ID number. Donor details are not disclosed, not even to the Ground Team of IL Mission. Likewise, details of candidates are never made public under any circumstances.
IL Mission is not dependent upon any support from the Government or semi-government organisations. Social activities performed by IL Mission are independent of any intervention from government or non-governmental organisations.
IL Mission has no direct or indirect affiliation with any company, group (political or non-political). Our activities are purely based on the social need and are performed only to help the poorest students of our society for meeting their educational requirements.
Our sources of funding are Donations, Zakat, Khumus, Sadqa and Qarz Hasna. Funds are raised from the public and they directly transfer the funds to the college/institute. No other source of funding is available except from the personal income of the donors.
Performance reports in the form of our dashboard are published from the time to time. The details in this report include information on donations raised, expenditure, number of students helped, regional analysis, and provides full details on the type of funds raised during a particular period.
We maintain records of each and every transaction and also the type of funds raised. The quarterly report is generated and shared with our members, donors and other participants etc. All the records are maintained with a high secrecy so as not to damage the respect and honour of our students and/or their families. We thoroughly adhere to our privacy policy.
The member of the group both at Ground Team and Finance Team level are all volunteers. They all work only for the sake of Allah, for helping the poor student community of Kashmir valley. IL Mission currently operates with a minimal overhead expenditure, given the fact that all work is done on voluntary basis.