TRUE DEVOTION

A man with such a true devotion and a well known personality he is a Pakistani philanthropist and the head of Edhi Foundation.
Abdul Sattar Edhi, as he is often known, the world's largest ambulance help service and charity.
Edhi foundation is the most trusted name in Pakistan when it comes to relief work within distressed areas in Pakistan and the rest of the world.
Edhi foundation is a NON Profit organization that has been in the business of providing social services like medical care, emergency services, air ambulances, burial services, mental habitats, old homes, child welfare services, abused women safe houses and training facilities for the disadvantaged

Edhi was born in 1928 in Bantva in the Gujarat, British India. His family migrated to Karachi, Pakistan in 1947 and in 1951 he purchased a small shop where he opened a small dispensary with the help of a doctor who taught him basic medical care. Edhi would sleep on a concrete bench outside his store so he was available at any time to help people. In 1957, a major flu epidemic occurred. Edhi set up up tents on the outskirts of the city to distribute free immunizations. Grateful residents donated generously to Edhi and so did the rest of Pakistan after hearing of his deeds. With all the donation money he bought the rest of the building and opened up a free maternity centre and nursing school, and so the Edhi Foundation was born.

The Edhi Foundation continues to grow throughout the Muslim world, and Edhi’s simple and pragmatic view of how best to help continues . His son, Faisal, once stated that when the Foundation was setting up in Afghanistan, local staff had purchased chairs for guests and the press for  new center opening. When Edhi arrived, he was furious because the money that was spent on the chairs could have been used to help people. That night he slept on the clinic floor with the ambulance drivers.  Edhi refuses to accept donations from governments or formal religious organisations, because according to him, they set ‘conditions’.

Edhi is a modest man of humble birth, now in his 70′s, whose humanitarian contribution is legion, and its impact now international. Edhi and his foundation according to the Guinness Book of Records is the owner of the largest Ambulance fleet in the world.
Edhi Foundation's activities include a 24 hours emergency service across the country through 250 Edhi centers which provide free shrouding and burial of unclaimed dead bodies, shelter for the destitutes, orphans and handicapped persons, free hospitals and dispensaries, rehabilitation of drug addicts, free wheel chairs, crutches and other services for the handicapped, family planning counseling and maternity services, national and international relief efforts for the victims.
Currently the Foundation is a home for over 6,000 destitutes, runaways and mentally ill, and it provides transportaion to over 1,000,000 persons annually to the hospitals, in addition to other wide ranging services.

 Not many people in the West know about Edhi. his wife, Bilquis Edhi, is also a very well known name in the society she is doing greeat work for the womens and children in pakistan.  he received the 1986 Ramon Magsaysay Award for Public Service. He is also the recipient of the Lenin Peace Prize and the Balzan Prize. Edhi is a Muslim of the Memon community. On September 22, 2010 Edhi was awarded an honorary degree of Doctorate by the University of Bedfordshire.

His mother taught him humanitarian values from an early age. She would send him to school with two coins, one to spend on himself and another to spend on someone who needed it. From the age of eleven, he also had to take care of his mother who suffered paralysis from severe diabetes
Young Abdul Sattar devoted himself for looking after all her needs; cleaning, bathing, changing clothes and feeding. This proved to be a losing battle against the disease, and her helplessness increased over the years. Her persistent woeful condition left a lasting impression on young Edhi. The course of his life took a different turn from other persons of his age. His studies were also seriously affected and he could not complete his high school level, For him the world of suffering became his tutor and source of wisdom.

Edhi's mother died when he was 19. His personal experience made him think of thousands and millions, suffering like his mother, around with nobody to look after them.
Even at this early age, he felt personally responsible for taking on the challenge of developing a system of services to reduce human miseries. The task was huge; he had no resources. But it was something that he had to do even if he had to walk to the streets with a cap in hand to beg for this purpose.

Abdul Sattat Edhi was married in 1965 to Bilquis, a nurse who worked at the Edhi dispensary. The couple have four children, two daughters and two sons. Bilquis runs the free maternity home at the headquarter in Karachi and organizes the adoption of illegitimate and abandoned babies. The husband-wife team has come to share the common vision of single minded devotion to the cause of alleviation of human sufferings and a sense of personal responsibiliy to respond to each call for help, regardless of race, creed or status.

 "I'm a Muslim," says Edhi, "but my true religion is human rights. He and his family live in a two room apartment adjacent to the premises of Foundation's headquarter. Neither Edhi nor Bilquis receives any salary.
.The live on the income from government securities that Edhi bought many years ago to take care of their personal needs for the rest of their lives, thereby freeing them to devote single mindedly to their missionary work.


The other occasion when the Edhi was thwarted was earlier this year in relation to the humanitarian crisis in the Gaza, in the aftermath of the Israeli incursion. Edhi was denied access to visit Gaza to bring in aid and supplies. This both confused and saddened him.   Edhi was  in Cairo  and was reported  to have said  ‘he regretted that every coming day was making the sphere of human rights more restrictive across the world’. He said that he has helped in the provision of relief to people affected by wars, civil wars, earthquakes and drought in 28 countries and was never before stopped from doing what he calls his ‘job’ . Ever the man who simply wants to help others, he thanked the Pakistani ambassador to Egypt for trying to get him permission to enter the Gaza but saidhe was ‘returning home as a depressed person’. A sad moment in the great life  of  Abdul Sattar Edhi – a man with a , a legacy that will stretch across continents and will pass down through generations.  We wish Edhi, his family and his Foundation best wishes and goof fortune for the future.

Ibrahim farrukh
Section H
09u0664