Dosti History

Pakistani-American physician, Dr. Munir Ahmad, established Dosti Foundation and its sister organization in Pakistan, Dosti Welfare Organization in 1994 with a handful of friends and relatives. The agencies were founded in response to what they saw as a growing trend in Pakistan: very young children scavenging through garbage, begging on the street, or working long hours in auto-repair shops when they should have been in school.

Today Dosti is dedicated to improving the lives of these children and their communities through education. Dosti sponsors schools and vocational centers, as well as health and sanitation projects.

Dosti brings educational resources to places where, too often, education is considered an impossible luxury, especially for girls. We target communities in which child welfare is severely compromised by poverty, violence, and political and social oppression—areas such as Ghari Atta, where children are “mortgaged” to brick-baking factories, or Rasheed Gari, where children beg in the streets.

Dosti has introduced schools in these and dozens of other communities of the Northern West Frontier Province of Pakistan and has served more than 10,000 children in little more than a decade. The majority of these students are girls.

While the schools closely adhere to a government-approved curriculum, Dosti concentrates on math and science. Educators also emphasize respect and tolerance—values that are essential in today’s “global village.”