Muhammad Atif Sheikh has spent more than two decades asking institutions an uncomfortable question: what if the greatest obstacle facing a person with a disability is not the disability itself, but a society that was never designed to include them? That question has carried him from a small self-help initiative in Islamabad to national policy discussions, international forums and research on inclusive development. His journey is not simply about overcoming personal barriers. It is about shifting responsibility towards the schools, workplaces and public institutions that create those barriers.
In 1997, Sheikh joined other people with disabilities in establishing the Special Talent Exchange Program, known as STEP. At the time, disability in Pakistan was often discussed through charity, welfare and sympathy. People with disabilities were rarely treated as leaders or invited to shape the decisions affecting their lives. STEP began as a self-help organisation, but Sheikh’s vision gradually moved beyond supporting individuals. He wanted institutions to recognise that exclusion is usually created by the environment. A wheelchair user may have the qualifications for a job but still be prevented from working by stairs. A visually impaired student may be ready to learn but excluded by inaccessible books or websites. Changing the person cannot solve barriers built into society. The institution itself must change.
This understanding gave practical meaning to the disability rights principle, “Nothing about us without us.” For Sheikh, participation should begin before a policy, building or service is designed, not after decisions have already been made. People with disabilities bring professional knowledge shaped by lived experience, and their involvement can expose problems that others fail to notice. His advocacy soon entered wider policy discussions. In 2002, he represented Pakistan at the World Assembly of Disabled Peoples’ International and the Osaka Forum on Disability and Development. His Make the Right Real profile records that he later presented technical papers at more than 30 international policy meetings and seminars. He also became the first chairperson of the South Asian Disability Forum, connecting advocates confronting similar barriers across the region.
As Sheikh’s work expanded, disability rights were receiving stronger legal recognition. Pakistan signed the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities in 2008 and ratified it in July 2011, according to the United Nations Treaty Collection. The convention protects rights in areas including accessibility, education, employment and public participation. Yet Sheikh’s career has repeatedly demonstrated the distance between recognising a right and making it usable. A law cannot help a qualified applicant if recruitment software is inaccessible. School admission means little if teaching materials cannot be used. The right to vote remains incomplete when polling stations exclude voters. His work therefore shifted from demanding recognition to challenging institutions to examine how their everyday systems operate.
Employment and education became two important tests of that approach. Sheikh argued that businesses should not employ disabled people out of sympathy. They should remove unnecessary barriers so candidates can compete according to their abilities. His 2023 Diversability D 30 profile credits initiatives connected with his work with creating employment opportunities for around 10,000 people with disabilities during the preceding year. It also records his involvement in developing a school for 240 children with disabilities in rural Pakistan. These figures come from the recognition profile rather than an independent evaluation, but they illustrate the practical direction of his advocacy. A job can create income and personal independence, while meaningful education can change the possibilities available across an entire lifetime.
His later work through the Center for Research on Inclusive Development added another dimension to that journey. Research matters because people who are missing from national data are easily overlooked in budgets, schools, transport systems and emergency plans. This becomes especially dangerous during floods and other disasters, when inaccessible warnings, evacuation procedures and shelters can place disabled people at greater risk. Sheikh has argued through his work that inclusion must be built into planning before a crisis occurs. In 2026, he continued to be identified as a senior disability-inclusive development adviser and founder of STEP and CRID in discussions on advancing disability-inclusive education in Pakistan.
The significance of Muhammad Atif Sheikh’s journey does not rest on a single organisation, award or statistic. It lies in how his focus evolved from helping people navigate exclusion to asking why exclusion existed in the first place. His work challenges institutions to stop treating accessibility as a favour and start recognising it as a responsibility. Real inclusion is reached not when a disabled person is praised for entering a system built against them, but when that system is rebuilt so their presence is ordinary. Sheikh’s continuing mission is to make that change permanent, until people with disabilities are no longer invited into decisions as an afterthought because they are already present as professionals, researchers, policymakers and leaders.
