For more than a decade Shahadat has been a full-time yet unpaid teacher and surrogate parent to literally hundreds of impoverished slum dwellers. He divides his time between two or more locations – Parva School situated atop a rubbish tip to the north of the city and latterly the grandly titled Zindagi Foundation which currently has no premises beyond a store room in a neighbour’s house.
Parva School and the Zindagi Foundation School were both founded by Shahadat Ali in 2010 and 2020 respectively. Parva serves a slum of approx 400 inhabitants.