Why Pakistan’s most successful businesswoman should be celebrated

As the founder of 256 schools, Seema Aziz has transformed the lives of millions. So why does the West ignore her story?

Pakistan society intended Seema Aziz to be a wife and mother. Her father arranged for her to get married at a young age, and by her early thirties she had a comfortable life as a Lahore housewife, married to a chemical engineer. Then she took charge of her own fate. In the late 1970s, well before the era of jihad, Pakistan was flooded with western products. People began wearing jeans and T-shirts, leading Seema to conclude that there was a market for high-quality Pakistani clothes produced locally. She opened her first shop in 1985, when she was 34, in Lahore’s ancient cloth market. Her family told her they were ashamed because she had gone into business, but her instincts were vindicated: the clothes flew off the shelves. ‘Later I came to understand what entrepreneur means: you create a product that people don’t know they need with money that does not exist.’ Today she controls an empire of 450 Bareeze stores (translated as Blessing of God) across Pakistan and the Middle East. Seema is the country’s most successful businesswoman, which in itself makes her amazing. What makes her extraordinary, however — and a figure who should be celebrated internationally — is something else.

Seema Aziz’s schools have rarely been written about in the West. This is probably because they disprove every western prejudice about Pakistan. They are a story of success and not disaster; about hope rather than despair. They do not boost the profile of western politicians coming to the rescue of a failed state. No western aid agency helped to get them established. Today Seema operates 256 schools, many in rural areas. They give a sound education to boys and girls who would otherwise be illiterate, and many of her alumni have gone on to become teachers themselves. Others have trained as engineers, businessmen and women, doctors, surgeons, soldiers — their lives utterly transformed by Seema Aziz and her CARE schools. Indeed, they are now starting to change Pakistan itself, helping this beautiful but damaged country make use of the abundant talents of its population. The story begins in 1988, when the Ravi river, which flows through Lahore, was about to overflow after heavy rains. Engineers saved the city by bursting the banks so that water escaped into the surrounding country. But countless homes and villages were washed away as the water rose.

Seema had set up a factory in one of these villages, so she travelled to the stricken area. At first she concentrated on building new homes and delivering food and clean water. ‘There was no sewerage, no drinking water, no electricity, no roads,’ she recalls. ‘It was absolutely heartbreaking, only 15 miles outside Lahore, the cultural centre of Pakistan. I became like the pied piper, with hundreds of children following me around, all barefoot, matted hair, runny noses.’ Seema asked why the children were following her. She was told that there were no schools and they had nowhere to go. That was the lightbulb moment when she made the decision that would go on to transform the lives of so many of her fellow citizens. Her decision to set up a school and provide those children with an education did not meet with universal support, however. Many ridiculed her when some of the children who would attend her school didn’t even have a home or a roof over their heads. Others told her that ‘The poor don’t want to study.’ Her response: ‘Everyone wants a better life for their children.’



http://www.spectator.co.uk/2016/01/why-pakistans-most-successful-businesswoman-should-be-celebrated/

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