Zahida Hameed Qureshi: From Crawling Through School to Building an Accessible Pakistan

For 12 years, Zahida Hameed Qureshi travelled to school on the back of her brother’s bicycle. Reaching school, however, did not end her struggle. Without a wheelchair, she sometimes had to move across the floor using her hands while other children walked freely around her. Zahida had polio when she was six months old, leaving her unable to walk. Growing up in Multan, she faced discrimination before she could even enter a classroom. Six schools refused to admit her because officials believed her disability would disturb or distract other students. She was not rejected because she could not learn. She was rejected because the schools were unwilling to include her.

Candle Girls High School eventually admitted Zahida, but admission did not provide independence or full inclusion. She often remained alone at her desk while classmates moved around, worked in groups and used the whiteboard. Without suitable support or mobility equipment, she could not participate equally and later described this isolation as a form of harassment. No one needed to tell her directly that she did not belong. The inaccessible environment delivered that message every day. Her childhood experiences, including the bicycle journeys, six school refusals and having to crawl inside school, are documented in The Guardian’s detailed account of her life.

A major change came when Zahida entered college and her father bought her first wheelchair. For the first time, she had greater control over her movement, but the chair could not remove the stairs around her. Her college had no ramps or elevators, and she sometimes missed lectures because she could not reach the rooms where they were being held. The problem was not her ability to study. It was a building designed without students like her in mind. After college, friends and relatives advised her to continue studying from home. Distance learning may have been easier, but Zahida chose to attend university in person. In 2000, she completed a master’s degree in economics from Bahauddin Zakariya University in Multan. Even this achievement did not guarantee equal opportunities. Jobs for women with disabilities were scarce, public buildings remained inaccessible and suitable mobility equipment was difficult to find. Zahida understood that determination could help a person face challenges, but determination alone could not remove barriers created by poor planning and social attitudes.

In the late 2000s, Zahida helped establish the Society for Special Persons in Multan and became its leading figure. Sources differ on the precise year. The Guardian and Zahida’s National Forum of Women with Disabilities profile give 2007, while other records point to a founding meeting in 2008 or formal establishment in 2009. What is certain is the organisation’s purpose: creating practical opportunities for people with disabilities.

Customised wheelchairs became central to its work because a standard chair does not meet every user’s needs. Body size, physical condition and daily routine can determine whether a wheelchair provides freedom or becomes another difficulty. The organisation therefore began making individually fitted wheelchairs for children and adults. By October 2022, it had distributed 6,000 customised wheelchairs free of charge, according to The Guardian. Earlier reports contain lower totals because they were published at different stages of the programme.

The organisation’s workshop does more than manufacture mobility equipment. It runs six-month courses in which people with disabilities learn to cut, weld, fit, assemble and repair wheelchair parts. Trainees are encouraged to build a chair for themselves. A participant can leave with improved mobility, practical knowledge and a skill that may provide an income. That person may also repair equipment or train other wheelchair users, becoming a skilled worker and problem-solver rather than being treated only as someone who needs help. According to the Norwegian Human Rights Fund, the organisation has also provided training in computers, mobile-phone repair, handicrafts and dressmaking. It has helped people search for jobs and access small-business loans. These programmes recognise the close connection between movement and income. A person may need a wheelchair to reach work, but also needs useful skills and economic opportunities to build an independent life.

Zahida knew that wheelchairs could solve only part of the problem. People cannot move independently when schools, workplaces, mosques, hospitals, universities, public offices and polling stations can only be entered by climbing stairs. In 2011, she launched the Accessible Pakistan campaign, calling for ramps and other improvements in public and community buildings. During Pakistan’s 2013 general election, her organisation used its own resources to create accessible model polling stations in Multan, including providing ramps and wheelchairs. Contemporary reporting documented the effort while highlighting how inaccessible polling stations discouraged many people with disabilities from voting. The campaign demonstrated the difference between having a right and being able to exercise it. The legal right to vote means little when a citizen cannot enter the polling station.

Zahida’s work has grown from local projects into wider discussions about government planning and disability rights. Her NFWWD profile lists her as the forum’s national coordinator, founder and CEO of the Society for Special Persons, an adviser to the Punjab government and a member of the Aawaz II Provincial Forum. Her journey is rightly described as a story of courage, but courage alone does not explain her impact. Zahida did not crawl through school because she lacked ability, and she did not miss lectures because she lacked determination. Those difficulties existed because institutions had been created without considering people with disabilities. Her response has remained practical: build suitable wheelchairs, teach employable skills, install ramps and bring people with disabilities into the rooms where decisions are made.

“For me, my disability is my strength. And my message is to never lose hope,” Zahida says in the Norwegian Human Rights Fund profile. In her work, hope is more than a positive thought. It is a wheelchair that fits its user, a skill that can provide an income, a ramp that opens a public building and a place at the table where important decisions are made.