“Woodman, woodman, spare that tree Touch not a single bough For years it has protected me And I’ll protect it now …”

The lines from the ballad by George Pope Morris are the inner voice of all the old and new students of the Jufel Hurst School in Garden East, Karachi. The old wooden roof of the over 150 years old school building broke due to lack of maintenance after the school was nationalised in 1974 leading to the Karachi Building Control Authority (KBCA) sealing portions of the historic school while declaring it unsafe. Meanwhile, the school, with over 1,200 students still functions until it is closed down permanently as per the wishes of some distant relation of the founding principal Miss Sybil D’ Abreo apearing on the scene only recently. The plan is to sell off the one-acre land worth millions for construction of aparment blocks, which the school students and their parents don’t want to happen because they want Miss D’ Abreo’s legacy to continue. The school teachers, too, love the school. The school’s good results in the board exams each year is evidence enough of their hard work with the students.

Jufel Hurst School was founded without any motif of profit or livelihood involved on Feb 1, 1931, in three rooms of an old house that belonged to Miss D’ Abreo’s parents. She had named the school ‘Jufel’ by taking the first two letters from her mother’s name ‘Julie’ and the first three letters from her father’s name ‘Felix’. She had no funds, just inexhaustible energy and eagerness to help the young ones in the city. Education was her hobby. From there the school grew adding two classes every year. It stood strong through World War II followed by Partition when Karachi’s population grew. Soon they had to start a second shift to accommodate the number of students.

Miss D’ Abreo devoted her life to this school and never married. She died alone with no family on her side. Her body was discovered after several days in her home. There was no sign of any relative even when she was being laid to rest. But there is someone now to claim the land as an inheritance. The old students of the school or rather the old boys consider themselves her family and are willing to generate funds for renovating the school building as they believe that it should rightly be declared a hertitage site by the Government of Pakistan.— S.H.