Abdus Sattar Edhi was a Pakistani humanitarian who founded the Edhi foundation.
Edhi foundation runs the world’s largest ambulance network as well as numerous homeless and animal shelters, orphanage and rehabilitation centers across pakistan.
He is also known as the richest poor man in the world, the most generous beggar in the world, Angel of Mercy and Pakistan’s Father Teresa.
Birth, Family and Early Life ;
Abdus Sattar Edhi was born on 28 February 1928 in a Memon Muslim family in Gujarat, India. His father was a cloth merchant.
Edhi left school at the age of 11 to take care of his mother, who had a stroke and subsequently developed mental instability.
Eight years later, in 1947, he lost his mother, who was too poor to receive medical attention.
Edhi was deeply devastated by this death. Because she dedicated her life to her mother and provided for all of her disabled mother’s needs, she was unable to even pursue an education.
Edhi found himself thinking aloud throughout her mother’s illness about the plight of orphans in need of assistance and the conditions of other patients who resembled his mother.
Begging and Edhi Foundation ;
Edhi was left uneducated after losing his mother at the age of 19. After taking a few jobs, Edhi chose to beg when he returned to his Pakistani hometown.
But unlike other beggars, Edhi had a very distinct reason for begging on the streets. With the money he saved from begging, Edhi opened the first health facility in 1951.
More assistance started to come to him when he opened the health clinic, so he started the Edhi Foundation.
This foundation was founded to help a wide range of organizations and individuals, including women’s shelters, drug addicts, elderly and care-needy individuals, mentally ill persons, and orphaned children.
Till the end of his life, Abdul Sattar Edhi never stopped begging, and because of this foundation, the amount of support that he received greatly expanded across the nation.
After 1950, the Edhi Foundation’s name alone transformed Pakistan’s economic landscape, and with its more than 1800 ambulance network services, it eventually rose to the top of the global ambulance network services provider rankings.
Based on data by the Edhi Foundation of 2016, 25 private hospitals employ thousands of people and provide services to 335 health clinics.
Twenty thousand abandoned babies and over fifty thousand orphans have been placed under protective care thus far, all thanks to the organization.
Forty thousand of these kids were raised by professionals from a variety of fields, including nursing.
Perseverance of Edhi ;
Edhi was a Muslim who carried out humanitarian work in Pakistan, the United States, Eastern Europe, the Middle East, the Caucasus, and Africa.
He offered these services to everyone, not only Muslims. Despite Edhi’s wisdom, some so-called Muslims misrepresented him and spread false information about him.
He, on the other hand, ignored them in favor of pursuing his objectives and jumped to the rescue of everyone in need, regardless of their background, religion, or way of life.
Throughout his life, he received numerous accolades from Pakistan and other countries, and many nations considered him deserving of peace awards.
Bilquis Edhi Trust ;
Edhi was married to Bilquis, a nurse who worked in Edhi trust dispensary. They had two daughters and two sons.
Edhi established a welfare trust named Edhi welfare trust, which later on was renamed after his wife as the Bilquis Edhi Trust.
Death ;
Abdul Sattar Edhi died of kidney failure on 8 July 2016. After his death, hundreds of thousands of people in his nation observed a day of grief and attended his funeral.
We extend our heartfelt gratitude to Abdul Sattar Edhi for his remarkable selflessness, wish him Allah’s mercy, and truly congratulate him on his journey of goodwill that began with him pleading for an education after he was denied one.
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Writer
K M Jahin
Intern, Content Writing Intern
YSSE