Ehsan Fazili/Srinagar
With its focus on education and healthcare, the Mooj Kasheer Welfare Trust, a Srinagar-based NGO has also initiated emergency ambulance services for victims of road accidents.
Compared to several States, Jammu and Kashmir has a very high road accident rate, particularly on the Srinagar-Jammu national highway and hilly roads in the Doda-Kishtwar region.
Of the 270 km long Srinagar-Jammu national highway (NH44) only 66 km between Srinagar and Qazigund tunnel falls in the plain area. At least 713 people died in different road accidents in J&K during 2021, while 2708 others died during the three previous years.
“The ambulance services have helped people during the past about three months.” 21-year-old Amir Rashid Wani of the Mooj Kasheer (Mother Kashmir) Welfare Trust told Awaz-The Voice. He said that the Trust was getting calls from people in distress during medical emergencies and also during road accidents.
“We have provided ambulances to many accident victims in Baramulla and Kupwara districts,” says Wani, who plans to expand the ambulance services.
The basic aim of Mooj Kasheer is to help the poor and needy. Wani said volunteers of the Trust across Kashmir and in some parts of the Doda district of the Jammu region, help the poor and needy by them providing, food and financial assistance during hospitalization and transportation of the patient to and from hospitals.
Nearly a dozen volunteers of the Mooj Kasheer Welfare Trust were engaged in providing food kits to the needy in at least six orphanages in and around Srinagar in the last week of Ramazan. These volunteers, both boys, and girls, continue to provide food kits and other services to the needy throughout the year. Amir Rashid Wani registered the Trust in 2019, after the abrogation of Article 370. It started with a focus on education and healthcare.
“It’s not only during the holy month of Ramazan, but we have also been providing rations and other assistance to some 5,000 families across the UT throughout the years," Wani said.
During the Covid-19 emergencies, the Trust volunteers provided Oxygen facilities to patients at doorsteps without accepting money for that.
“We are also providing Oxygen cylinders to the needy during winters when the concentrators do not work,” he said. “During Covid-19 waves, we worked with the Government departments to help people get free oxygen cylinders and concentrators,” he said.
The Trust runs its operations with donations from the general public. The Trust does not accept cash or money transfer since it doesn’t have a bank account “We make donors directly help the poor and we facilitate in providing the bank accounts of the needy people,” Wani said.
The trust has 87 volunteers between 18 to 24 of age. “It is good training for the youth to do social work,” Wani said. He says soon after setting up the trust the Mooj Kashmir group shared stories about those in need on social media.
“People liked it and came forward with new ideas. After the August 5, 2019 abrogation of Article 370, many people contacted us for help not only in Kashmir but also outside the valley including Delhi, Punjab, and Chandigarh. Many students from Kashmir needed help in these areas and we associated ourselves with Muslim-Sikh unity in Punjab. There was also a good response from Khalsa Group in Malerkotla, who would send us rations for the needy Kashmiri students in that region.
In addition to these facilities, the Trust has a mission titled “Let us support simple Nikah” for poor girls, whose marriages are solemnized by providing all the requisite items.
It plans to organize simple marriages of 250 girls this year and has already helped solemnize 40 marriages. The Trust has organized 67 marriages during the last year.
The Trust is also working on setting up Polyclinics and diagnostic centers and an educational trust to provide education free of cost orphans, Amir Rashid Wani said.
