Click to play videoSrinagar: Meet a man who has broken all stigmas in the troubled valley of Kashmir by helping secure a better future for neglected widows.
Dr Rauf Mohideen is helping women in the valley find a new life and a new life partner.
Thirty-five-year- old Tasleema still remembers the fateful day 11 years ago when her husband left for work to never return. With three kids to bring up, Tasleema's life seemed impossible.
Tasleema says, “My brothers and family went to search for him. But we couldn't find him.”
With no news of her husband for almost eight years, Tasleema continued her endless wait until someone knocked at her door.
Social Activist Dr Rauf Mohideen, a practicing dental surgeon in Srinagar, runs an NGO called Koshish with the aim to get Kashmir's half widows, like Tasleema, remarried. The idea came to him when he met a widow in 2002.
Dr Rauf says, "I once went to a house of a widow asking we were to sponsor her children. As I was about to go, she stopped me and said what about me? That shook me. I thought she has a right too and that prompted me to look at remarrying the widows.''
In the last six years, he's got almost 40 'half widows' remarried.
But Dr Rauf's work goes beyond widow remarriage. He has started three non-formal education centres like Koshishin and around Srinagar and has sent almost five girls to primary govenment schools.
Dr Rauf says, “When I came here, no one could talk in Urdu. Today, girls talk freely.”
Dr Rauf is not just another face in the crowd. He is making sure that in a valley torn by conflict, the women and the children have a future they can look forward to.
(For updates you can share with your friends, follow IBNLive on Facebook, Twitter and Google+)
displayed with permission. Use of the CNN name and/or logo on or as part of CNN-IBN does not derogate from the intellectual property rights of Cable News Network in respect of them.