Despite CRY's desire to address the needs of children and communities devastated by the earthquake of October 8, 2005 in Kashmir, our capacity to respond is extremely limited. The violence and conflict in this area has resulted in very few grassroots organisations operating there. CRY partners just 2 organisations in J&K, the J&K Yateem Foundation (part of our QIC&AC - Quality Institutional Care and Alternatives for Children initiative and Secure Future, a grassroots organisation in Badgam district.

Neither partner's operational area was directly affected by the earthquake. Secure Future has, however, agreed to extend their work area to 2 blocks of Baramullah district.

Field visits by CRY personnel revealed the need for clean drinking water, warm clothing for young children and safe spaces for children to reconnect with their education and their childhood.

Relief and rehabilitation work has commenced in 11 villages of Uri and Buniyar blocks. Since rivers, the main source of water, have been polluted by corpses and animal carcasses, we are providing water purification tablets. "Phirans" for 500 children under the age of 5 are also being provided. Secure Future is also working with local school headmasters and village leaders to identify other needs and the neediest. Active participation by children and communities will be ensured in designing and implementing the programmes.

Board exams for classes VIII and X are scheduled in late November and it is still unclear whether these will be postponed or not as many parents and children want the exams to be held on schedule so that children don't lose a year. Around 200 children in these 11 villages are preparing for their Board exams. Keeping this in mind, the initiative will erect and run 13 interim schools in the 11 villages where government school teachers will work with their students. The make-shift schools will be equipped with blackboards, seating mats, text books etc.

Once the immediate relief phase has been completed, the interim schools will evolve into activity centres for children. This is a model CRY has developed and successfully implemented, both in Gujarat, post the earthquake there and, more recently, in the tsunami affected areas of Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh. The scope and activities in these centres will be designed along with the children. Each activity centre will be manned by Secure Future volunteers selected from among local youth. These volunteers will be trained in child friendly teaching-learning methodologies and they will visit CRY partners in Uttaranchal for an exposure visit before the valley gets snow bound.

Besides this direct action with children and communities for access to relief, Secure Future will coordinate with government agencies in Baramullah to keep them in the loop about relief and rehabilitation needs and progress. They will also participate in the NGO Coordination Committee that has come into being in Srinagar for coordinating quake related activities. CRY too will participate to the extent possible.

We hope to work with other Committee members to evolve a child-centric relief code for Jammu and Kashmir based on our collective experiences in J&K and in other disaster relief operations. This will be presented to the State Government to help mitigate the impact of future disasters.

Since the entire intervention will cost about Rs. 5,00,000 CRY will not seek additional funds from donors for this purpose.

With faith and goodwill,

The CRY team