Sustainable relief work after 2014 Floods


Sustainable Rehabilitation through
Communication-Trust-Development.

In September 2014, the Jhelum river swelled way above its usual level due to a combination of flash floods and human encroachments on its riverbank. The floods hit the entire Kashmir valley, and the localities of Srinagar, Budgam, Anantnag, Awantipora, Bijbehara etc. were the worst casualties. In total, 390 villages were entirely submerged while 1400 villages were directly affected. Aseem responded with a combination of temporary and sustainable relief.

What did we do?

As we wanted to run a model of sustainable development, which required personal attention and concentrated efforts, we focused on two villages, Samthan and Reshipora. We focused on Health and Well-being as an immediate recovery tool from the flash floods. First, Working with Administration, we arranged to remove locked water from villages and did pest control so as to restrict the possibilities of contagious diseases.
Then, Food and essential medicines were distributed to the people who needed it. Parallely, our volunteers conducted meetings with School students, villagers and put up posters all across the villages.
To avoid further problems arising due to lack of clean water, we distributed water filters to every family in the village. Moreover, Solar lanterns were distributed to overcome frequent electricity failures.

Following organizations helped us a lot in our efforts:
Samthan Youth Group
Parivartan, Pune
Symphony Teleca
Persistant
Bitwise
Infosys
Go Air Airways
Jet Airways
Spice Jet

After the floods:

We were happy to get felicitated by Maulavi of Jamia Masjid in Samthan after Friday prayers for the work done in the village. This is a rare event, as usually Maulavis do not comment on matters not related to religion.

A Letter of Recognition of the efforts made by us in the aftermath of floods was sent to the District commissioner from the Punchayat of Samthan. Even today, when our volunteers visit these villages, we feel happy and fulfilled after noticing the solar lanterns and water purifiers.

Letter of appreciation by the Panchayat in Samthan Letter of appreciation by the Panchayat in Samthan