Mrs Tamkeen Akhtar Niazi wife of Mr Hameed Akhtar Niazi was born on September 11, 1956 at Abbottabad. She holds a Diploma in Apparel Management from Southern College of Technology, G.A, USA; and a Bachelor degree with a focus on psychology from Kinnaird College, Lahore. She is an activist, a designer and an educationist, who has been elected as Member, Provincial Assembly of the Punjab in general elections 2013 against one of the seats reserved for women. She has travelled to Singapore, Saudi Arabia, Dubai, USA and UK. She alongwith her husband, a former bureaucrat, founded and support “Khidmat” an NGO in Mianwali, in a far-flung and backward area of Pakistan since 1990. The main focus of her work is on the uplift and economic empowerment of women in the area where they are oppressed. She has contributed heavily in running a vocational centre for girls, which allows them to acquire skills to earn their living as well as provide them free legal aid. An even larger project undertaken by her is the establishment of a charitable Maternity and Child Hospital, which provides free health care to women and young children in the region. She also has an experience of teaching in a private school in Islamabad which expands over a decade. It was her social work that propelled her into politics, when she realized that real change can be implemented more effectively through the legislative process.
