The region of Ladakh struggles to sustain its own production of wool amid climate change and growing border tensions. Many people have moved hundreds of kilometers away from their homes to Leh, the only city in the region, due to virtually no access to health facilities and schools. Furkan Latif Khan went to explore and sent us this report.
Research shows summer monsoon winds, which would previously stop at the southern border of the region, are increasingly making their way into the valley.
When the world went into lockdown last year, schools in many countries experienced a once in a lifetime kind of shutdown. It was unprecedented. But for the children in the valley of Kashmir, that was nothing new. For the last decade, uprisings and violence have shut down schools indefinitely, affecting their upbringing and future, as Furkan Latif Khan has been finding out.
A Lady Karvaan
The library established by the Karavan. Pic: Karavan
For the inmates at
Daarul Muhsinaat, an orphanage in Singhpora Pattan, the thought of having a library was an unreal one until Covid-19 happened.
“The girls started to become extremely tense because of the closure of schools and as much as I tried, I couldn’t teach them every subject,” Fahmeeda Mir, warden of the all-girls-orphanage, said. The Kashmir schools were shut for seven months when the Covid-19 lockdown took over, thus creating a sense of anxiety and distress. Inmates found it suffocating to spend days at ‘home’. Their boredom, however, came to an end when a library was set up in the orphanage by