A village surrounded by mountains on all the sides may be awe-inspiring to some visitors but it can also be terribly lonely and unbelievably chilly. Belasalamabad is one of the villages of CARE India’s temporary shelter site lying close to the border of Baramulla district nearer the Uri sector. It is located at the very bottom of Shola Forests, in the Weste... Read More
Himalayan mountains, resplendent with pristine natural beauty, the site which attracts tourist attention globally, is now a place dotted with sad scenes of dilapidated houses, shaky school buildings, barren agricultural lands, empty shops with piles of garbage caused by the flash floods. A foul stench emanates all over and it will take quite some time to return t... Read More
This is a tale of Sanmal Begum from Mudari Pattan village in Jammu and Kashmir. We came to this village to distribute dry ration kits. This is one of the largest villages comprising of 185 beneficiaries. Mudari Pattan has 600 inhabitants, 303 of them females. The inhabitants’ main source of livelihood is paddy cultivation. During the distribution, I noticed... Read More
“Good afternoon sir! My name is Shaukat Rasool and my friends and I would like to help out with the good work that you are doing in this village!” Turning around I saw three young Kashmiri youths standing behind me. This was my first day in Kashmir having flown in to Srinagar in the morning and heading straight to the village of Padgampora in Avantipo... Read More
Trikanjal in Uri block of Baramulla district, is a village located adjacent to a stream flowing down the hills. The settlement is almost a century old now and the community’s livelihood mainly used to depend on natural resources, mostly agriculture. The farmers used to cultivate paddy, apple, green apple and dry nuts in their fields. The population here was... Read More
Ghat Gopalan is a village about 45 km from Srinagar in Pattan block of Baramullah district. Here, the community’s main occupation is fishing, and they also hunt birds. The skills the villagers had developed while hunting birds helped them flee from danger during the recent floods along with their dependents. A river channel that passes by this village used ... Read More
The theme for this year’s World Food Day is ‘family farming’ but there’s not a lot to celebrate in South Sudan where the specter of famine looms large. CARE’s Senior Advisor on Emergency Food and Nutrition Security Justus Liku explains. Family farms – managed by a family, and reliant on their labor - are an important part of rural development. In countr... Read More
In an emergency, the elderly are particularly vulnerable. With less mobility, or vision and hearing impairments, the elderly are often unable to flee quickly in times of attack, and are unable to collect food, firewood or water, relying on others to survive. Many often face the trauma of isolation and the loss of the ability to earn an income. On International Da... Read More
While walking past the piles of debris in Gulzarpora village in Pulwama district, I saw this young boy sitting with his father, Mr. Wani, on the rubble where once stood his house. Holding the mud bricks in his hand the boy said ÔÇÿthis is all that is leftÔÇÖ. I saw the sparkle in his eyes when he started talking about the happy times he spent with his family ... Read More
I recently travelled to Jammu and Kashmir along with my colleague Satyadarshi Patnaik, to gain a first-hand understanding of the post-flash flood situation in the affected region. Our idea was to review the interventions, which we have been carrying out, and those which we are planning to undertake in the coming days, in responding to this emergency. The Governme... Read More
Tea is a rare commodity in which the leaf itself becomes an edible part. Tea bushes are perennial in nature with their economic life spanning to as high as hundred years, with the first yield coming in about four years after planting. Unlike the common notion that more the weight of the leaf the higher is the price, it is actually the tenderer the leaves harveste... Read More
