Fathema Ismail

Founder

Founder of Society for the Education of the Challenged

Fathema Ismail is the founder of Society for the Education of the Challenged (1958)[1], an Indian non-profit working on disability, education and women & children from Mumbai.

Society for the Education of the Challenged

The Society for the Education of the Challenged (Child and Adult) was founded in Mumbai in 1958 by Fathema Ismail, whose own daughter was affected by polio. It began with thirteen students in a scout hut at Dhobi Talao and received Bombay Municipal Corporation recognition in 1963. SEC now runs day schools at Agripada, Pratiksha Nagar and Khar Danda, a residential school at Naigaon, and an integration and inclusion programme.

Society for the Education of the Challenged reports the following, on its own site:

SEC's residential Centre for Independent Living at Naigaon, on the Mumbai-Pune road, runs a primary school recognised as a special school by the Maharashtra Government with grant-in-aid for 40 children, alongside a hostel that can house around 50 children in two boys' dormitories and one girls' dormitory.
A wheelchair distribution camp organised on 26 July 2025 benefited 46 students of the Society for the Education of the Challenged across its Mumbai units - 17 at Agripada, 13 at Khar Danda and 16 at Wadala.