“The word ‘no’ doesn’t exist in my dictionary,” says Shabina Mustafa in her characteristic no-nonsense tone. From anyone else this statement would sound pompous if not ridiculous; from Mustafa it is a simple statement of fact.

Married at 18, widowed less than two years later, she stands today as the guardian angel of the residents of Neelam Colony, Karachi many of whose lives have been turned around by a tiny school Mustafa started in her garage almost 14 years ago.

The youngest of five siblings Mustafa remembers being the spoilt darling of the family. She attended convent school and later the Holy Cross College in Dhaka but admits that “I was never very scholarly,” confiding that she actually failed her maths exams thus putting an end to her ambition to become a doctor. But fate had a bigger role for her to play.

“My sister got married into the Mustafa family when I was about 18; her brother-in-law, Saifi, was a flight lieutenant and was posted in Dhaka, so my mother used to invite him over for a meal every so often.” Saifi Mustafa was obviously smitten by his sister-in-law’s vivacious kid sister as he applied for special permission to get married. “In those days air force pilots were not allowed to get married until the age of 26,” Mustafa explains. Her parents did not wish to get their daughter married off so early but he was obviously a determined man. “He sat all day in our veranda and finally my parents said yes.”

The wedding took place immediately because the groom was being posted to Karachi where his first action was to get his bride admitted to university and then to teach her to drive. “I used to drive to the university from the air force base in Mauripur; even after I got pregnant I carried on regardless and Saifi got me air sickness bags from the airplanes to throw up in.” Mustafa smiles fondly as she remembers the carefree days; unfortunately, the happiness was very short-lived.

The year was 1970; trouble was brewing in what was then East Pakistan and the Mustafas were posted back to Dhaka where Saifi was immediately dispatched on a secret mission. The last time she met her husband was on March 15, 1971. “He arranged for me to fly back to Karachi via Colombo; he could have come with us and no one would have been the wiser but he was a dedicated officer and he never left his post.” Saifi Mustafa was awarded the Sitara-i-Jurat posthumously.

In Karachi Mustafa initially lived with her sister; when her brother-in-law was posted to America she was literally left without a home. “A friend arranged for living quarters at the air force base and I moved there with my infant son and my mother; all we had were two plates and a kerosene stove. The war broke out soon after and my mother would tie the window shutters together with her duppatta to keep them from flying open during the air raids.” There is no hint of self-pity or tragedy in her voice; in fact Mustafa seems almost amused by the drama of the long-gone days.

Gradually Mustafa picked up the pieces of her life; she returned to university and completed her degree in social science. She got a job and moved into an apartment; anyone else would have decided they had dealt with enough challenges for a lifetime but Mustafa was just getting started.

“One day my maid told me that her daughter wanted to join a sewing institute but was not accepted because she did not know even basic arithmetic. She told me that there were a lot of children in her basti who were keen to study and suggested that I teach them. I half-jokingly told her that if she fixed up the garage that was being used as a store, we could use it as a classroom. Lo and behold, the next day when I came back from work the garage was shining clean — my maid had even found some old linoleum for the floor — and there were 14 children sitting there, their faces scrubbed clean, eyes shining, all eager to learn. So that was how it began.”

The Garage School slowly grew from bits and pieces that Mustafa managed to beg and scrape; some planks of wood from a construction site made for desks, someone donated a blackboard. Mustafa would scrounge discarded pencils, erasers, even used printer paper to use as stationery but gradually their needs expanded. Her son, the well-known architect and designer Zain Mustafa, was her staunchest ally, providing both material and moral support at the toughest times.

“We had 80 students and more and more kept arriving. Tahira, my maid’s daughter whom I had taught, and I were the only two teachers taking classes in two shifts but this was not enough. It was then that one of our chief benefactors, Abbas Vawda, suggested that we start placing our children in mainstream schools and offered to sponsor the first 10 students. Tahira and I worked day and night preparing our 10 brightest students for the entrance exam and they all got into Nasra School.

Balbir Singh was one of them, he is now studying bioscience at SZABIST; another from that batch is studying nautical engineering at Aga Khan College. Eventually 42 students got into good schools and all are doing well.

“Later on I placed several boys in St. Patrick’s technical school. Vocational training is often more practical for these children as their parents need them to start earning as soon as possible. God willing, the next generation will go on to be doctors and engineers,” is Mustafa’s pragmatic approach.

Unlike other charity schools, Mustafa believes in a more holistic approach to education; students are given a free meal everyday (even if it’s just biscuits and juice depending on funds); they receive comprehensive healthcare including surgery at the best hospitals if needed. Students are taken on field trips to build confidence and provide exposure; they have their own savings accounts in a bank. “I want them to learn that being poor doesn’t mean being less than anyone; they too have the right to walk into a bank and be treated with respect, to walk into a shop and get good service.”

What started off in a tiny garage has now expanded into a three-storey building in Neelam Colony, but Mustafa is fast running out of space to accommodate all her dreams. “We are bursting at the seams. There is a morning school attended by 184 students; the afternoons and evenings are for adult literacy attended by the mothers of our students as well as older children who have never been to school; there are about 80 of these, mostly girls. In between we fit in computer classes and sewing and embroidery. If we had the space we would provide beautician and cooking classes too.

“I have no big names, no corporate sponsorship; but I am blessed to have so many angels who provide donations in cash and kind; who volunteer time and energy and keep things going. Every time we need something, God finds a way to provide it; it’s like a series of small miracles.”

Unlike other charity schools Mustafa is no mere administrator; she knows each student by name, knows their family members and their medical history. She bakes cakes for their birthdays and cooks halwa for them all on shab-i-barat. Every child, be they from any faith, gets a new set of clothes on Eid.

So what next? “Teacher training. There’s no point building schools until you have good teachers and for that you need proper training. I have the resources; all I need is the space. My eventual mission is to create a complete community centre including school, vocational training, healthcare, day-care for women who want to work but can’t leave their children and anything else a community needs to be self sufficient.

Abroad every community has its own school and essential services so why do we expect our people to commute long distances for primary education and basic healthcare?” Hearing the passion and commitment in her voice one has no doubt that Mustafa will eventually achieve all she plans to, because ‘no’ is never an option.