Dignity first
No photos of faces without consent. No labels on ration bags. No queue that looks like a line to beg.
Our mission
Serve, don't sermonise.
AL Sadat Ghayas Dastarkhuwan Welfare Organization exists to feed hungry families in Karachi and, over time, across Pakistan — with dignity, without paperwork barriers, without questions no hungry person should have to answer.
We are guided by the Islamic tradition of hospitality that has always sat at the centre of Pakistani homes: when the cloth is spread, the guest is served first, and no one asks who paid.
What we stand for
Four values that decide every rupee
Verified need
Every ration family is visited before enrolment. We check what's needed — and stop when it isn't.
Programme, not overhead
Volunteers, not paid staff, drive most of what we do. Every donation is tied to a specific programme.
Honest reporting
We publish where the money goes, quarterly, in plain numbers. If we miss a target, we say so.
Our story
Five years, one rule.
March 2020, the first week of lockdown. Karachi's daily-wage workers — drivers, cleaners, chowkidars, chaiwallahs — stopped earning overnight. A handful of us started cooking daal-chawal at home and taking it to a corner outside a mosque in a lower-middle-class area of the city. Forty plates the first night.
Word spread. The next month it was two hundred plates. By Ramzan, we were serving iftar to whole streets. Someone printed a banner. Someone else opened a bank account. A name showed up on the banner — AL Sadat Ghayas, the family name of one of the founding volunteers who passed away that same year.
The organization formalised in late 2020, registered with the relevant authorities, and adopted the word Dastarkhuwan — the cloth spread on the floor at mealtimes — because it says the thing we care about: everyone at the same cloth, everyone served the same food.
Where we are now
Five years in, we run a daily hot-meal service at fixed points in Karachi, a monthly ration programme for over 18,500 verified families, a Ramzan iftar-and-sehri drive, winter blankets and warm meals in katchi abadis, and a rapid emergency response for floods and fires. Around 300 active volunteers make it work.
We are still small compared to the need. We are also still simple: spread the cloth, cook the food, hand it over with respect, count what we did, tell you honestly.
The team
Volunteers who show up before the food does
A small management team, a large kitchen team, and hundreds of hands that turn up unpaid because they want to.
Founder Name
Founder & President
Started the first cloth outside a Karachi mosque in March 2020.
Trustee Name
Trustee & Treasurer
Chartered accountant. Oversees books, audits and monthly reporting.
Operations Lead
Field Operations
Runs daily kitchens, ration logistics and the volunteer roster.
(Placeholder details — real profiles will be added once photos and bios are provided.)
Legal & registration
Registered, audited, accountable
- Registered name
- AL Sadat Ghayas Dastarkhuwan Welfare Organization
- Registration number
- REG/NGO/00000/2020
- Registered under
- Societies Registration Act, 1860 (Sindh)
- NTN
- 0000000-0
- Head office
- Office #01, Main Road, Sector 00, Karachi 75000, Sindh, Pakistan
- UAN helpline
- 0311-1285111
- info@alsadatghayas.org
- External auditor
- To be updated (annual audit report published on this page)
Registration details shown are placeholders — real numbers will be inserted once documentation is provided.