Charity for British Pakistani Women
The story of the All Pakistan Women's Association and its UK charity.
The All Pakistan Women's Association (APWA) is one of the longest-running social welfare organisations in Pakistan, promoting the participation of Pakistani women in social, economic and cultural life, including Pakistani women settled abroad.
Begum Ra'ana Liaquat Ali Khan, wife of Prime Minister Liaquat Ali Khan, founded APWA at the Prime Minister's residence in Karachi on 22nd February 1949.
APWA was created to help mobilise Pakistani women during the refugee crisis following partition, and became a women's social welfare organisation represented in every district of every province of Pakistan and at embassies worldwide - a tradition that continues today.
Such a nation-wide association would have added benefit of possible affiliation to other world organisations of a similar nature, and would give its members, when sent abroad, the sort of 'official' standing they require in order to make the proper contacts and to speak with authority. Such an Association will also serve to unite us all more closely together, to obliterate the petty differences of caste, creed, colour and the outmoded but ever present menace of provincialism.
