The day my husband’s news came to me as “believed missing or killed”, the same day I attended my convocation at the University of Karachi. My mother who has been my pillar of support said “that chapter is closed and you have a new life ahead of you now”.

I started my life with just two plates and a kerosene stove in a one room apartment in Mauripur, Karachi. I fought for my husband’s gallantry award for 22 years. Finally, after going through many hurdles I received the award in 1994.

I got the idea for the Garage School in November 1999 and dedicated it to my husband who always wanted to educate the poor and the underprivileged. The school is an extension of my family. My aim now is to upgrade two of the localities where most of the children of the school reside: Neelum Colony and Shah Rasool Colony.

From the floor to the tables was a slow and steady progress. At first my friend Riffat gave a plank of wood which we balanced on a cement block.

Soon after I got a small blackboard, given to me by my nephew Mehdi, followed by the coloured tables and benches given by my brother Zafar. After two years we were lucky to be sponsored by Sheraton, and Mr. Thomas Opstal went out of his way to take care of us. At first he upgraded the school looks by tiling the floors and painting the walls. He even gave us 5 bicycles so that the boys could go to attend computer classes, not to forget the luxury of being invited on and off to the Sheraton for parties etc. This gave them a lot of confidence and our first step in grooming the children. We even had our first handicraft exhibition there. The children fondly remember Mr. Thomas OPSTAL.

One day while talking to Lubna (a lady running a boutique in Zamzama ) who was stitching our school uniforms free of cost, I met Mr. Abbas Vawda.

The gentleman behind the sponsorship scheme. He visited the garage and asked me “Where do they go from here ? Why don”t you send them to formal schools?”. So that was the time that he decided to sponsor Anil and 5 others. And thus the seed was sown for the children’s future.

Next year he sponsored another 10. He preferred girls to the boys and to this day he is in constant touch with us. A wonderful person with a heart of gold.

Then by brother in Dubai, Athar, seeing how malnourished these kids looked, gave me the idea of giving them milk and biscuits for nourishment.

So I started writing to various companies for milk and biscuits. Haleeb gave us milk for one year only and English Biscuit started giving us biscuits and to date they have not stopped. The children look forward to their daily biscuit treat. Now milk and juice is supplied by volunteers .

Soon Wartisila started giving us uniforms, shoes, and sweaters. They also provided us with colourful tables and stools for the new Garage school extension.

Health care was another issue.

Dr. Khalid Bhambha was introduced to us through a friend, Tahir. All our children yearly get their Ent, blood grouping and blood tests done. We had 4 ear operations at his hospital.

Blood grouping was important as this was to be printed on their I.D cards so they could be given blood in case of accidents as they all walk to school.

This it how it all began and we have now grown to become a big happy family.

A maidservant’s daughter in Shabina Mustafa’s building was refused admission in a sewing class because she could not read or write. In the intro to the project her rejection spawned, Shabina writes, “if I could teach her some basic numeric and literacy skills, she could build on them and learn specialized skills to make something of her life. It was then that I thought, why not teach the children of other servants too. My garage was lying unused and it came in handy for this purpose.”

More here.