Mehboob Malik is popular as ‘Hero Chai Wala’ in his locality. Due to financial constraints, he could not complete his studies. Today, he runs an NGO where he provides poor children with free education and spends 80 percent of his income from the tea shop on the school expenses.
Kanpur: The most glorious achievement in the entire world is working for the upliftment of others. There is not better taste of success than feeling gratitude and satisfaction from helping others. Kanpur’s Mehboob Malik could not attain his desired educational degrees, but he strives to provide free education to poor children. So far, he has provided free education to almost 1500 students.
Who is Mehboob Malik?
Mehboob Malik runs a tea shop in Sharda Nagar, Kanpur. He is 34 years old and the youngest among five brothers. He grew up in a poor household and the dearth of money led to him to discontinue his studies after class 10th. After failing to complete his studies, he opened a tea shop.
Seeking inspiration
Mehboob shares that during morning hours at his shop, he used to observe plenty of kids going to schools in their neat uniforms while many other children would just steal a glance at their shiny dress-ups and would do the daily task of garbage picking. Mehboob found these two sides of the society disturbing and from thereon, he vowed to teach these poor children himself.
Studying at a tea shop
There was no available free space to give his lessons, so Mehboob started teaching kids at his tea shop. Slowly and gradually, more kids took interest, and he had a bunch of students studying from him. Despite his extremely low earnings, he saved up some money and opened a coaching centre in 2017 in the slum area near Sharda Nagar Gurudev Talkies.
Establishing an NGO
Mehboob’s friend Nilesh learned about his coaching centres and advised him to open an NGO. Mehboob did exactly the same and named his organization ‘Ma Tujhe Salaam Foundation’. He had 50 students at the time.
Gaining recognition
Happiness always finds its way. It did not take long for Mehboob’s NGO to gain recognition among public. The word spread around, and the parents started sending their kids to Mehboob’s school.
The monthly rent of the centre was Rs 10,000 and then there were expenses for books, notebooks and other stationary items. All the expenses were made from Mehboob’s earnings from the tea shop.
Teaching more than a thousand students
So far, Mehboob has taught over 1500 students through his NGO. Students receive absolutely free education at this coaching centres. Mehboob works with 12 teachers and mostly primary class students are taught. The students from his school have gone on to become class 10th and 12th toppers.
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