ENTREPRENEUR
THE HUMAN TOUCH Philanthropist Abdul Sattar Edhi has turned 90 but hopes his son will continue his life’s work
itting on a sofa in his head office in Karachi’s crowded neighbourhood of Mithadar, 90-year-old Abdul Sattar Edhi is greeted constantly by passers-by. He always waves back through the window with a smile. No man has been held in such reverence in Pakistan since its founder Muhammad Ali Jinnah. Philanthropist and social activist Edhi has been dubbed “the greatest living humanitarian in the world”. Yet despite his status in his home country, he lives a simple life with few comforts and limited technology, a spartan office with a few plain wooden desks, marble flooring and ceiling fans providing relief from the soaring heat outside. Edhi has devoted his life to helping people, despite being castigated from some quarters, labelled an infidel and atheist for helping non-Muslims and even beaten at the hands of his own Memon community, a South Asian group to which his family belongs, for helping non-Memons. “People may say things about me. Let them speak. I have never concentrated on their words. I am doing my work and it makes me happy,” Edhi says. Likewise, he does not get enthused by the good things his supporters say about him either. It was 64 years ago that the philanthropist stood on a street corner in Karachi and begged for money for an ambulance. He only made enough to buy a clapped-out van but it was the beginning of a lifelong mission to feed the poor and bury the dead.
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The young Pakistani went on to set up philanthropic institutions all over the country, from orphanages and homes for the mentally ill to drug rehabilitation centres and hostels for abandoned women. His open-door policy meant no cause was excluded from his compassion. Edhi’s autobiography, published in 1996, describes how he recovered the poor and the lifeless “from rivers, inside wells, roadsides, accident sites and hospitals. “When families forsook them and authorities threw them away, I picked them up. Then I bathed and cared for each and every victim of circumstance.” Today, Edhi’s foundation runs the world’s largest voluntary ambulance service providing emergency care. He has more than 300 centres across Pakistan and offices in the US, UK, Australia, Canada, Japan, Nepal and Afghanistan. He also owns the largest number of mortuaries in the country. Now suffering from renal failure, the devoted public servant seems content when he talks about his NGO’s achievements: “Had I not laid the foundation, Pakistanis would be dying and there would be no one to pick their bodies from the streets or even homes.” Edhi says it is “poor people” who contributed most to his foundation’s success. “One call for donations and the poor people come to me immediately to give the little that they have,” he adds. “Although people here have so many problems of their own,
Images courtesy of Getty Images
BY SHEEMA KHAN