For the last 15 years, a widow living in Sultan Diki Tehsil Urii, a border village in north Kashmir, has been forced to live with her young daughter and son in the scorching sun and bitter cold in a two-room tin shed. Interestingly, this shed was built for the widow by the Catholic Social Service Society, a foreign NGO, after the 2005 earthquake.
The widow’s daughter is a Class 10 student while the son is studying in Class 12. The family has no bread earner. The J&K Yateem Foundation, a non-governmental voluntary organisation, has been sponsoring the family for the past 11 years. Sheikh Abdul Ghani, district representative of JKYF Baramulla district, says the Yateem foundation has been helping them since 2010 to survive.
Asked if Rs 1,400 a month is enough to meet the needs of a family, he said, “In this age of inflation, the needs of an individual cannot be met with such a small amount of money, let alone a family. But given the resources, a public-funded organisation is not expected to do wonders.” He also assured that in the coming months, JKYF will revise its assistance policy to the needy in various categories.
There is no washroom facility in this tin shed. The young daughter has to go to a nearby house to wash and relieve herself. It torments her mother for obvious reasons, but she has to undergo this torment every day.
When the district representative of JKYF was asked why the foundation did not build a small dwelling place for the family with basic facilities, he said, “The main problem is lack of funds. Through our efforts a wealthy man laid the foundation of a house for the family at his own expense. But after that, none could take it forward.”
There are hundreds of families in Kashmir who do not have a home to live in and are forced to spend the mornings and evenings of their life with their children in one or two-room sheds made of tin sheets. The heart of a sensitive person is wounded upon hearing and seeing the difficulties of these families. Social service organisations should focus on this issue; homeless people are waiting for their help.

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Javaid Jawad