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• (Re)construct critical economic/social infrastruc-

ture, including schools and health centres

• Facilitate the (re)creation of livelihoods

• Improve the quality of health services and schools

• Promote disaster risk management with an

emphasis on community preparedness.

It was clear from the start that the enormous effort required

to rebuild people’s lives could not be achieved unless

people themselves were central to the decision-making

processes and the implementation of the programme.

Thus, community mobilization, with the establishment of

democratic village and women’s organizations, formed the

programme’s fundamental activity, upon which all other

aspects of the programme have been built.

Chakama Valley and the Uri Block

Both programme areas lie off the main Muzzaf-

arabad/Srinagar highway, but comprise some of the

remotest and highest valleys in the region. The Chakama

area comprises 14 revenue villages and around 33

hamlets, with a population of around 34,000 in some

5,500 households. In the Uri Block, the programme

covers around 20,000 people in 17 revenue villages. The

topology is very similar across both areas, and maize,

wheat and rice in lower areas, are grown mainly as subsis-

tence crops. Walnuts are an important cash crop in Uri.

Incomes are derived primarily from government/army

employment and remittances. The areas’ strategic impor-

tance, from a military perspective, meant that the

population had been reasonably well serviced by the

respective Government and army, and the desire to do

things for themselves was limited. Furthermore, the

communities were somewhat divided along party polit-

deep trauma they had suffered. The Chakama Valley on the Pakistan

side and the Uri Block on the Indian side, where rapport had been

built up with communities during the relief phase, and which lie adja-

cent to each other across the LOC, were selected for the programme

with the following objectives:

• Promote the establishment and strengthening of civil society

organizations

• Facilitate the construction of seismic resistant and thermally

insulated homes

Repairs helped to improve traffic on the valley road

Women collecting water from the river

Image: AKDN Kashmir Programme

Household contributions have enabled the construction and

maintenance of water systems

Image: AKDN Kashmir Programme