Board of Trustees

While 33 of my 50 years working career has been abroad, I felt strongly that my success was due to the fact that I was “Made in Pakistan”. The thought that thousands of poor but brilliant students are at the risk of losing their dreams due to lack of financial resources kept bothering me. This led to the idea of PEF and its mission: Poverty Alleviation through Professional Education.

Inspired by the insight of the founding fathers of PEF, I realised there are many educational foundations serving those in need in Pakistan still, none of them plug the gaping hole of 'job ready', educated young adults. These young persons of post matriculate ages will be consigned to a lifetime of blue-collar work when, in fact, they are capable of being tomorrowʼs leaders. We cannot afford to ignore them.

We all understand that primary and secondary education is the basis of national development, but I believe that investment in Professional Education offers the fastest route to poverty alleviation. I decided to join PEFʼs journey as it will lift thousands of people from abject poverty to respectability.

The thing that attracted me to PEF was the possibility to be impactful in some small way to help people achieve their dreams. I am not aware of any others that take them through a university level education, thus empowering them to build more meaningful lives for themselves and their families and hopefully reverse the poverty cycle. Education is one potential gateway towards financial freedom, in my humble opinion.