The spirit of the Edhi foundation was born when Abdul Sattar Edhi was a child. At the tender age of eleven, Edhi’s mother became paralyzed and mentally ill. Young Abdul Sattar Edhi devoted himself to her care and took on the role of feeding, bathing, and clothing her daily. Her deteriorating mental and physical condition left a lasting impact on Edhi’s mind. As a result, he dropped out of High School and strictly focused on his mother’s health. Edhi’s mother died when he was nineteen. His mother’s death made him reflect on other fellow Pakistanis who were suffering from similar illnesses.
After his family moved to Pakistan in 1947, Edhi established a free dispensary with the help of other community members. His vision for establishing and improving the healthcare sector in Pakistan enabled him to establish a personal welfare trust for the people called “Edhi Trust”. With the help of public funding, Edhi’s trust was able to collect Rs.200,000.
He was penniless but begged for donations for his needy people.
He expanded the trust to other medical fields and through hard work and diligence, he went on to establish a maternity home and an emergency ambulance service. Edhi made it a habit to involve himself in every aspect of his foundation
His foundation raised money for most noble causes. The Edhi foundation had allotted a quota for each humanitarian cause, whether it was burying abandoned corpses or aiding in disaster relief.
International Services:
The The Edhi Foundation is funded entirely by private donations and services are offered to people irrespective of ethnicity or religion. It runs the world’s largest volunteer ambulance service (operating 1,500 of them) and offers 24-hour emergency services. It also operates free nursing homes, orphanages, clinics, women’s shelters and rehab centers for drug addicts and mentally ill individuals.
It has run relief operations in Africa, Middle East, the Caucasus region, eastern Europe, and the United States.
In 2005, the foundation donated $100 000 to relief efforts after Hurricane Katrina.
Edhi resolved to dedicate his life to aiding the poor, and over the next sixty years, he single-handedly changed the face of welfare in Pakistan. Edhi founded the Edhi Foundation.
Additionally, he established a welfare trust, named the Edhi Trust with an initial sum of five thousand rupees, the trust was later renamed as the Bilquis Edhi Trust (Bilquis Edhi was his wife).
Regarded as a guardian for the poor, Edhi began receiving numerous donations, which allowed him to expand his services. To this day, the Edhi Foundation continues to grow in both size and service and is currently the largest welfare organisation in Pakistan.
Since its inception, the Edhi Foundation has rescued over 20,000 abandoned infants, rehabilitated over 50,000 orphans and has trained over 40,000 nurses. It also runs more than 330 welfare centers in rural and urban Pakistan that operate as food kitchens, rehabilitation homes, shelters for abandoned women and children, and clinics for the mentally handicapped.
He has put a cradle outside each one of his centers for the babies who are unfortunately abandoned by their parents. He never questions the parents and he takes care of the baby no matter in whatever condition the baby was brought in.
The World knows Him
He was once dubbed as Pakistan’s version of Mother Teresa by India Today in 1990, and the BBC wrote that he was considered “Pakistan’s most respected figure and was seen by some as almost a saint.”
OFFICIAL WEBSITE: https://edhi.org/
Abdul Sattar Edhi (Late) - A King without crown 