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Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Wednesday, Feb 08, 2006

National

National

Youth enterprise amid ruins

Luv Puri

Four girls have started a school for displaced children in PoK

Chila Bandi (Muzaffarabad): Besides stories of death, destruction and looting of relief material there are ones of hope too in the quake devastated hilly belt of Pakistan-occupied Kashmir.

Four girls, who suffered the calamity, have set an example of self-sacrifice and enterprise forgetting their pain.

In the Guru Nanak relief camp funded by the Sikh in Canada and the United Kingdom, four young girls have reached out to orphaned children on their own.Aisha (17), Tahira (18), Yasmin (17) and Sabha (19) identified 50 displaced children and started a school for them. A blackboard and stationery came from their pocket money.

Noticing their enthusiasm, the camp authorities provided them space and books.

To keep them busy

Aisha, who lost one of her parents, says "there were many children who had lost their parents. We decided to start a school and keep them busy. Most of them are from the far-off areas of PoK where the education infrastructure is poor.""We identified students and put them into the classes on the basis of their ability to read and write," says Yasmin.

For the girls it has also been a sacrifice as they were to enrol in college this year. They decided to postpone their decision and put in a year for the children.

Tahira, who had topped her class in the 12th standard, says: "It was a difficult decision as we would be academically one year late. But, we thought that one year is a small price for helping 50 children."

Ali, local incharge of Guru Nanak relief camp, says, "The four girls have set an example to the rest of the people. They are a source of inspiration for many here as by forgetting their sorrow they are healing the wounds of others."

Mr. Amir lost his fiancée in the quake and today he is helping those widowed by the devastation through his relief organisation, Qasser Mirza Trust. "I just returned from Saudi Arabia to marry my beloved whom I knew since childhood. I decided to stay and never go back as a tribute to the girl I loved."

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