About Us

Safdaria Girls School was established by Late Begum Humayun Mirza, who was a philanthropist and a social worker, who had worked throughout her life for the emancipation and upliftment of women. The school is managed by Sugra Humayun Mirza Waqf.

The school started with 7 students in 1934 and now has a strength of 1400.

The school has 30 sections, each with 50-65 students from Class UKG to X. Students are attending not only from the surrounding localities but also from far-off places.
In 1999, NCC was included in the school which gives Safdaria a special status as being the only Urdu medium girls school in T.S. to achieve this distinction.
Free Education is provided to all girls maintained despite the high level of absenteeism prevalent among girls of this strata of society on account of family pressures and problems. The class X Board examination result ( SSC ) for the year 2003-2004 was 91%.

The school has a staff strength of 25, out of which only 2 are Govt. aided. The salaries of the rest of the staff and other employees, as also overheads, maintenance, etc, are met from the nominal income of the Sugra Humayun Mirza Waqf and contributions from our well-wishers. The existing building infrastructure is grossly in-sufficient to accommodate the increasing strength and additional activities that are continually introduced in the school.

THE FOUNDER

In the galaxy of Indian Women who have adorned the millennium, Begum Sugra Humayun Mirza occupies a place of distinction. Born in 1884, her father Dr. Safdar Ali Mirza was a surgeon in the Nizams Family. Having no formal education herself,Begum was home tutored in Persian and Urdu and went on to become a poet and an author. She was a women’s libber, loved to pen down her thoughts by the name of Haya and also worked endlessly as an activist for the rehabilitation of destitute women as well as stepping out of the pardha system in the society of Hyderabad. At that time, girls were discouraged to get an education, more so were they were married off promptly on attaining puberty. Though she faced a great deal of opposition at every stage, she never gave up the battle to help women discover their rights and live a life of dignity.

Her works include several safarnamas or travel accounts, novels, short stories, poetry and reformist writing. She wrote letters to Hitler asking him to stop the war. Pandit Nehru had also written to her on many occasions. She was also the Secretary of Anjumane Quawateen e Islam, started by Tayyaba Begum that taught women arts and crafts.

She was made the honorary member of societies like “The Hyderabad Text Book Committee”, International Congress Moral Education London and Royal Asatic Society London In 1934 Begum Sugra donated a huge part of her property to start a school called Madrasa e Safdaria and personally rounded up 7 little girls from the nearby slums with the dream to educate and empower the girl child.

Over the years she has been the subject of innumerable books, magazine articles, news reports, documentaries etc. Thus Safdaria Girls High School was started 88 years ago to educate girls in their mother tongue, Urdu as the medium of instruction. The rents from the properties that Begum Sugra had bequeathed to the cause of education, and donations from our well-wishers are used for this purpose. Having no surviving children of her own, she and her husband adopted her brother’s son Yousuf Ali Mirza.After her death in 1958, her son Yousuf ALi Mirza took over the school.

FOUNDER AND SECTRATORY

Lt. Col. Yousuf Ali Mirza (1992-2018) took over the school with barely 100 girls with minimum infrastructure and staff. Single-handedly he brought a military orderliness into the school and built it brick by brick up to the high school as it is today.

VISION

Educating girls from the marginalized section of Society and empowering them to stand on their own to join mainstream society as confident and responsible citizens.

Management

Safdaria Girls High School is run under the aegis of Sugra Humayun Mirza Wakf, as also the other centers like Sugra Humayun Mirza Vocational Training and Production Centre and Lt. Col. Yousuf Ali Mirza Open School. The managing committee consists of like minded professionals from varied walks of life and compromises the following:

Dr. Sultana Khan, MD, FICOG, Chairperson
Mr. S. A. Khader Retd.D.G., Border Security Forces, Vice Chairman
Mr. Humayun Ali Mirza, B. Tech, IIT Madras Secretary
Prof. Fatima Ali Khan, Retired HOD, Osmania University
Mr. Syed Siraj Akbar, BE Mechanical, OU
Mrs. Ismath Mehdi MA, Phd. Arabic, OU
Mrs. Dilnaz Baig, Ex-principal
Mr. Mir Turab Ali Yadullahi, B.Sc. M.A. Urdu
Mrs. Sakina Ali Previously, Director, Radiance School
Mrs. Laxmi devi Raj, Social Worker
Mrs. Kameshwari Jandhalya, Director, Mahila Samaikhya
Mrs. Sultana Nazeer, Principal, Princess Esin High School
Mrs. Seema Mirza, BHM, Self employed
Mr. Syed Taher, Retired General Manager