Samaniya Bhat
Sandra Mak born and brought up in a Christian family from Chicago USA, a lady with a beautiful heart, sweet mind, and a super fantabulous soul has found herself helping people at every stage of life, be it Chicago or Kashmir.
Sandra started her career as a cardio-nurse and was also the owner of a leading business firm in the USA.
A USA based business lady by profession reverted to Islam a few years back and had a very tough time while growing up in the non-muslim community in the USA.
In an exclusive interview with Kashmir Despatch Sandra Mak narrates the challenging period while residing in Chicago. She was not even having access to Halal food which grew a lot of indifference between her non-muslim family and Sandra.
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After reverting to Islam, she chose Kashmir as her place to serve humanity. In Muslim populated Kashmir, Sandra Mak acquired her Muslim name Sumaya Mushtaq.
In Kashmir, she thought to practice as a cardio-nurse but due to the non-availability of government license she couldn’t pursue her dreams but she never gave up to serve humanity.
Since childhood, she was passionate to take care of elder people as well as kids.
“My whole heart is for elder people, my love, sweetness, humbleness, and respect is for the elder people. They deserve a lot of respect and care,” Sandra said.
With her business management skills and leadership qualities, she decided to invest her skills and time in the education sector. Being a leading businesswoman in the USA who once owned a resort, post accepting Islam she found it inappropriate for a Muslim lady to own a business that is against the tenets of Islam.
“Whatever I gave up in my life, was completed for the sake of Allah and in return, Allah honored me with a Muslim family here in Kashmir, Muslim society and a school where there are hundreds of kids. Being at school gave me another chance to serve humanity towards good,” Sandra said.
She is very pleased with her husband, Kashmir’s family and near ones as without their support she would not have been able to achieve the level of excellence.
“I started working at the age of 16 and I believe without hard work, investing your time, without patience and belief in yourself, a person can’t be successful and won’t be rewarded,” she added.
Sandra believes that in a school, your job is not limited to teaching or guiding the students but you are responsible to open the minds of young ones and to make them understand what is right and what is wrong, imbibing the moral values of life in them and that lays the foundation of a welfare society.
She joined as a Coordinator at Aarifeen School of Excellence, Delina Baramulla in the year 2019. Aarifeen School of Excellence was established in 2018 and works under the aegis of Idarah Falahudarien (IFD), Baramulla which is known for its social reconstruction programs and has profoundly contributed to the growth and development of the society. Committed to the vision of collective-social evolution, ASE offers a wonderful place for education and excellence.
Narrating her basic principles of life, Sandra said that as a woman if you are educated enough, you are not only responsible to earn bread and butter but there are many more things which we should take care of, like, if there is a piece of paper lying on the ground it is your job to take it up and keep it at its proper place as per the value and use of it. You have to take care of your environment, human life and animal life.
It is a message and humble request to everyone around the world, don’t consider your job a limited responsibility but a human being is bound to responsibilities he/she has to fulfill as per it’s norms.
Commenting on the education system in Kashmir, Sandra said that there are a lot of issues that need to be rectified as soon as possible.
“As the teacher is a builder of the nation and the teacher should be well trained. Here in Kashmir a candidate is completing his or her education and getting the job but training is the important tool, which makes them a valuable asset for the society as the world is evolving and fresh minds needs to be filled with fresh information which makes them aware about, what’s going around them and that information they used to acknowledge and analyze, which brings out a shining star in him or her,” Sandra added.
She said that lack of infrastructure, equipment, tools which are very much important especially in the education sector that help a school to bring out a successful person, is taking a toll on the education sector.
Not only in Kashmir but India there should be reforms in the education sector as they are lacking basic amenities but Alhamdulliah here at Aarifeen School of Excellence we are keeping our school in a proper manner and trying our best to gain the best possible outputs, boosting the knowledge of teachers by conducting various programs and seminars and by providing technical training as well, which will help them to be better in all aspects of life.
If every school will take up these initiatives and I bet there would be very best possible results.
“For the education sector, good teachers with good infrastructure are the key to nation-building,” she added.
Message for Mankind
They said there is a struggle for women but which is completely hoax and for men, it’s a sacrifice which is purely baseless, if you are a hard worker, struggle and sacrifice doesn’t matter much, just keep trying and working hard make you succeed.
A lady from the USA is a living legend and a role model for us as she believes in hard work, dedication, patience, efforts and fight for their right. It indicates everyone can achieve their goals by their will if they are confident enough and won’t shy away, whatever the life throws at you. Life is always challenging and everyone will be getting different challenges at different intervals and accepting these challenges with the willingness of heart, the calmness of mind and desire to achieve makes them reap possible results at every stage of life.
Samaniya Bhat Bureau Chief Kashmir Despatch for North Kashmir, took an initiative to highlight the hidden truth within the Achievers series.
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