My sister, Shakila Yasmeen, is in hospital as I write this.

I do not have all her medical reports yet. What I know is worrying enough: her haemoglobin has fallen to 5.6 g/dL, and she is seriously ill. Like any brother in this situation, I am waiting for more information and praying that her treatment goes well.

While waiting, I have been thinking about the life she built long before this hospital admission.

She lost her sight when she was very young

Shakila lost her sight when she was very young. Blindness remained part of her life, but it did not prevent her from pursuing an education. She went on to complete a master’s degree in Urdu. Later, she entered teaching and became an Assistant Professor at a local college, where she teaches Urdu.

I have known these facts for years because she is my sister. Writing them down today makes me look at them differently.

A blind girl growing up in Pakistan had to find her way through an education system that was rarely designed around the needs of visually impaired students. Accessible books and technology were far less readily available when Shakila was studying than they are today. She continued anyway, and eventually the student became the teacher.

Her work with the Pakistan Disabled Foundation

Shakila’s experience also took her into charitable and disability work. She serves as Vice Chairperson of the Pakistan Disabled Foundation.

PDF was founded in Karachi in 1993. The organisation says it works to expand opportunities for persons with disabilities through education and training while advocating greater social inclusion.

Its programmes have a practical character. PDF provides educational support and distributes disability aids. It also reports providing rations and clothing to people in need. Other programmes support livelihoods and provide emergency assistance.

Some of this work is particularly relevant to Shakila’s own experience as a blind woman. The foundation runs Braille and technology training and distributes equipment for visually impaired people. Its public record includes programmes designed to help blind people use computers and smartphones.

One documented event helps explain the kind of work in which my sister has been involved.

In July 2024, PDF organised a national conference in Islamabad on the problems and achievements of persons with disabilities. Speakers discussed Braille education and accessible banking, while technology and e-learning also received considerable attention. At the end of the conference, PDF’s own report records that Vice Chairperson Ms. Shakeela Yasmeen gave the concluding remarks.

A two-day technology workshop for visually impaired people followed. According to PDF, 28 participants from different parts of Pakistan attended. They received training in JAWS and NVDA screen-reading software, including Urdu accessibility. The programme also covered smartphone accessibility and everyday computer applications.

Shakila was participating in discussions about problems she understood from her own life. She had been a blind student herself. She had gone through university, earned her master’s degree and entered a profession built around books and language. By then, she was also helping an organisation create opportunities for other people with disabilities.

Work that rarely receives much attention

The Pakistan Disabled Foundation says its activities have reached more than 100,000 beneficiaries. It reports distributing more than 70,000 pieces of equipment, including IT equipment, and supporting more than 40 NGOs annually. These are figures published by PDF itself, so I present them as the organisation’s reported numbers rather than independently verified statistics.

Its public activities show what some of those numbers mean on the ground. PDF has distributed assistive devices such as white canes and wheelchairs. Its programmes have also included Braille writing equipment and other tools intended to make daily life more accessible.

Shakila understands their value better than I can. She knows blindness as a lived condition, not as a subject discussed at a seminar. I also do not want to describe her life as a story about “overcoming” blindness. She did not stop being blind when she earned her degree, and she remained blind when she entered a classroom as a teacher. She built a professional life while living with blindness.

The Urdu teacher

Her charitable work is only one part of the woman I know. Shakila is also a teacher of Urdu.

I like that detail about her life because teaching Urdu requires a close relationship with words. Literature does not exist only on a printed page. A poem can be heard, discussed and remembered. Shakila made language her academic field and then her profession.

Her students may know her primarily as their teacher. People associated with the Pakistan Disabled Foundation may know her through disability work. I know the sister behind those titles, and today that is the person I am worried about.

Now we are waiting

I do not yet know why Shakila’s haemoglobin has fallen to 5.6. Her doctors are treating her, and until we have the medical reports, I do not want to turn incomplete information into a diagnosis.

Our family is waiting. Anyone who has sat outside a hospital room knows how slowly time can move there. You wait for a doctor, then a test result, and sometimes there is simply more waiting.

While I wait, memories of Shakila’s life keep returning. She continued studying after losing her sight. She completed her master’s degree in Urdu and became a college teacher. Later, she gave part of her time to an organisation working with people who face some of the same barriers she has known since childhood.

I don’t need to make a larger lesson out of that today. I just want my sister to recover.

Please pray for Shakila

I ask my friends, readers, Shakila’s students and those associated with the Pakistan Disabled Foundation to remember her in their prayers.

May Allah grant Shakila Yasmeen complete shifa, ease her suffering and restore her health. May He return her safely to her family, her students and the people she has served.

May Allah accept the good she has done for others and make it a source of mercy for her during this illness. Ameen.

For now, we wait. And I pray that my sister gets better.