Bilquis Edhi

Bilquis Bano Edhi Hilal-e-Imtiaz, (Urdu: بلقیس ایدھی‎, born August 14, 1947), wife of Abdul Sattar Edhi, is a professional nurse and one of the most active philanthropists in Pakistan. She has been nicknamed, The Mother of Pakistan. She was born in 1947 in Karachi. She heads the Bilquis Edhi Foundation, and with her husband received the 1986 Ramon Magsaysay Award for Public Service. Her charity runs many services in Pakistan including a hospital and emergency service in Karachi. Together with her husband their charity has saved over 16,000 unwanted babies.

Biography

Bilques Edhi was born in the city of Bantva in which is now western India on August 14, 1947. When she was a teenager she was not enjoying school and managed to join a small expanding dispensary as a nurse in 1965. At the time the Edhi home was in the old city area of Karachi known as Mithadar where it had been founded in 1951. The small number of Christian and Hindu nurses who worked there had just reduced in number. The founder, Abdul Sattar Edhi, recruited a number of nurses including Bilquis who, unusually, was from a Muslim background.