Markaz-e-Umeed (MeU - it means A Place of Hope) is a school for special needs children in an extremely under-privileged part of Karachi called Karimabad. It offers free schooling and support for local children (who have a range of conditions such as autism, cerebral palsy, etc with varying degrees of severity). With the levels of poverty in that area, these children are not properly supported, or managed. MeU's only source of income is charitable donations, so let's do what we can to help them.

I know MeU through my father who was the president there for around 12 years. As a family, we had become aware of the challenges facing special needs children due to my sister's son (Ammar) who has suffered from severe epilepsy from the age of 6 months and is now 20 living with serious cognitive impairment. Seeing how much support Ammar needs, makes MeU's impact with such sparse resources fantastic.

Over the 30 years that MeU has been in place, they have created the most incredible site with open spaces, trees, and colourful buildings. MeU transports the children to school every day, and the staff is a group of young, trained energetic people, who are all on a mission. They are now building a medical centre on site to provide free healthcare to the students and their families.

The impact on visitors to MeU is unbelievable - the joy and happiness you see in the children, and the affection they have for each other and the staff is incredibly moving. To see the conditions these children live in and how they are being helped by MeU is a real wake-up. Just see the pictures - they are actually that happy in real life!

The money you donate will be used to support the education and support for the children by paying for daily transport, staff salaries, maintenance and improvement of the site.

Please help me - it's so important to so many people there. Helping these children helps their families, which in turn impacts the community and drives a virtuous cycle of social improvement in an area and population that no one else is even aware of.