I sat down with Lubna Shakoh, founder of the Hope Uplift Foundation, to talk about how she started, what's kept her going, and where she wants to take things next.

What made her start an NGO in the first place?
She told me it goes back to her father — he was always involved in community and social work when she was growing up, so in a way it was already part of her. For a long time though, her own life looked pretty different. She was a housewife, and things were going smoothly. But she said she always wanted to be "a mirror to the blind" — her words stuck with me. The real turning point came when she went to a birthday party in a much poorer area than her own. She saw the garbage, the conditions people were living in, and it just hit her differently. Combine that with the fact that helping others was already something her household did quietly, and she decided to actually put real time into it. Funny enough, she originally wanted to just call it "Hope" — but that name was taken, so it became Hope Uplift instead, which honestly fits even better with what she's trying to do: lift people up, be a bridge for them.

The hardest part of building it?
Not the mission itself, she said, but the actual machinery of running an NGO — getting certified, staying organized, dealing with the admin side of things. Even the naming issue was a small taste of that bigger struggle: turning an idea into something structured.

What she thinks about the wave of young people starting NGOs (the "Instagram NGO" thing):
I asked her directly about this because it's everywhere now — teenagers with an Instagram page and a "non-profit" bio. She's actually positive about it overall — more people caring is a good thing in her eyes. But her advice was interesting: instead of rushing to start your own thing, go work for an established organization first, add your ideas there, build real experience, and then branch out once you actually know what you're doing.

She also didn't shy away from the messier side of it. A lot of the damage in the sector, she said, comes from people who aren't actually loyal to the mission — they register an NGO and then do shady things, and that's part of why the government cracks down. She mentioned that around 250 NGOs in Pakistan faced action this year alone.

Who inspires her:
Abdul Sattar Edhi — no surprise, but she talked about him with real warmth. Not just what he built with the Edhi Foundation, but how giving and warm he was as a person, even though he's not around anymore.

If she could redesign how her NGO work:
Two things: make it paperless, and close the gap between donor and recipient so it actually feels personal instead of transactional.

The school program she showed me:
At one point she pulled up photos — this wasn't part of my questions, she just wanted to show me. It was about a program where they take in kids from families going through hard times, some involved in pretty unstable situations, and get them into real schools — uniforms, structure, the whole thing. The photos were proof of what the program's actually done.

The NGO conference idea:
I brought up something I experienced myself — Social Business Day in Bangladesh, where NGO people from all over the world come together for two days. I asked her why something like that doesn't exist for Pakistan. She said she genuinely wants to do it, but the logistics are still a big question mark for her.

Where she sees Hope Uplift in 10 years?
Simple, really — more reach. More people helped.

What she wants her legacy to be?
This is the one that stuck with me most. She talked about her granddaughter, Emaan Hasaan who is currently a Grade 6th student at Lahore Grammar School Defence E Block, and how she's already passing these values down. She gave a small example — if they're driving and her granddaughter spots an elderly person who needs help on the street, she'll go help them. That, to Shakoh, is the legacy that actually matters — not the organization itself, but that instinct living on in the next generation.