Our mission
Shahida Education & Welfare exists to relieve poverty and advance education among children in Pakistan who are living in hardship. We believe a child's circumstances at birth should not decide whether they ever sit in a classroom.
Our focus is deliberately narrow: get a child into school, keep them there with a reliable meal, and make sure the place they learn is safe. We would rather do a few things well, for a few children, and prove it — than promise the world and deliver less.
We support children on the basis of need alone — poverty, age and location — regardless of background, faith or community.
Our approach
A UK home gives donors confidence and unlocks Gift Aid; a Pakistan partner delivers with local knowledge. Each does what it is best placed to do.
Registering in England & Wales as a Charitable Incorporated Organisation. It raises funds for its own charitable objects, reclaims Gift Aid, and makes grants at its trustees' discretion under strict controls. It does not buy or hold property abroad.
A sister organisation registering locally in Pakistan. It holds any lease in its own name, employs a local teacher, and runs the day-to-day — reporting back on every stage.
Founder's story
Shahida was my mum.
She was lost to us when I was young — and we never got the closure that word usually brings. She was in Pakistan. We were not.
What I know is this: she believed in education. Not as an abstract value, but as something worth sacrifice. When the time came, she let us go — to live with our dad, to study, to have the chances she wanted for us. She chose our future over keeping us close.
This charity is named for her. It won't bring her back, and it won't answer the questions that remain. But it continues something she started — the idea that a child's education is worth everything.
Every child we support is, in a small way, an answer to what she gave.
The first classroom
We're starting in Karachi, in Sindh. It's where we have roots, where we travel, where we know the ground.
The children we want to reach aren't hard to find. They're the ones who want to learn — you can see it — but who spend their days working instead. Making enough for the family to eat. The choice between school and survival isn't a choice at all.
There are plenty of madrasahs. What's harder to find is somewhere that teaches basic maths and English. Practical foundations. The kind of learning that quietly changes what's possible.
We're starting small — one or two children. That's not a limitation. It's a commitment to doing it properly before doing it at scale.
The goal isn't just school attendance. It's what comes after — support through exams, through decisions, through the years that determine whether a child's life stays the same or becomes something different.
My mum was from Lahore. Eventually, we want to reach there too. And further. But first: Karachi. First: one child, sitting somewhere safe, learning something that belongs to them.
— Aa'la Rajput, Founder
Our board
Our trustees give their time unpaid. Our board includes an independent trustee alongside founding family members, and we remain committed to strengthening it further.
Founder and unpaid day-to-day manager of the charity. Three-year term.
Independent of the founding family. Two-year term.
Founding trustee. One-year term.
As we grow, we'd welcome further independent trustees to strengthen the board.
Whether through your time, your skills, or a future donation — there's a place for you here.