Orphan Relief Trust — A smiling child is worth more than all money in the world :

Orphans are arguably the most vulnerable, unattended and neglected portion of Pakistani society. A UNCEF report once estimated that roughly over 4.5 Million children in Pakistan are orphaned.

Regular instances of ethnic and sectarian killings, bombings and naturalcalamities including floods and earthquakes. Not only they’re deprived of basic education but the worst thing is they’re sexually abused in various cases and misused for child labor..

The State of Pakistan has only limited themselves to merely legislation when it comes to protecting the Orphans, there’s no practical implementation of the laws and in almost all cases such kids are left to the mercy of private charities or orphanages owned by Religious Entities or even worse on their own… Its not a hidden fact that such kids are liable to sexual abuse particularly in those orphanages owned by pedophiles.

Problem Statement:

“As the number of unattended orphans keep on growing within Pakistan who are facing sexual abuse as well as child labor, a state of the art orphans relief trust is needed to cater their shelter, educational as well as emotional needs.”

Although unprecedented and peerless, there’s still a model that can be followed and that model is KORT ( Kashmir Orphan Relief Trust ).

KORT Complex, AJK:

Currently a home for over 1500+ homeless orphans with unprecedented and holistic facilities, Kashmir Orphan Relief Trust ( KORT ) is not just Pakistan’s but South Asia’s Biggest Orphanage with state of the art facilities for its residents.

That baldy guy in the above pic is Ch. Mohammad Akhtar and the girl he’s holding is an orphan who someone left at KORT a couple of years back. So here’s his story:

Saturday 8th October 2005 would have been a normal day in Kashmir had it not been for one of the most powerful earthquakes to hit the region. It was the holy month of Ramadan and everyday routines were temporarily put on hold for the annual fasts; shops opened their doors later than usual, as children studied and played while counting down the days to the beginning of Eid. It was the day that hundreds of villages and tens of thousands of lives were unexpectedly cut short.

Human cost aside, the economic devastation that visited Kashmir that morning was a massive setback for the region. Pictures of the disaster were circulated around the globe within a few hours and thousands of people responded with the same compassion they had shown to the Boxing Day tsunami victims in Indonesia just 11 months earlier. A group of friends including Ch. Mohammed Akhtar from UK were amongst the international TV viewing audience who felt compelled to act. Thanks to the generosity of their families, friends and local communities, they raised over £100,000 in just five days to provide tents, blankets, food and medicine for the worst hit areas. Whilst they were at the scenes of devastation, they came across a group of children heading down a mountain with fear and anxiety on their faces; they had filthy clothes, no footwear and were hungry for food. The children were asked about their situation and they said they were orphans from the mountain villages who witnessed their families being killed and had their homes destroyed by the earthquake. They were told by surviving village elders to go to the main cities and seek help as there was no future for them in the villages anymore. It was this experience that led Ch. Mohammed Akhtar and his friends to start KORT (Kashmir Orphan Relief Trust) to offer long term support for orphans. KORT believes that it is the right of children to be protected, taken care of; physically, psychologically, emotionally and these rights don’t change when children become orphans.

The above pic is the first time I visited this heavenly place , I was literally stunned by the type of facilities they’re providing for these kids, from the quality of food to the quality of fabrics along with State of the art schools and hostel facilities…

I think this Organization needs far more recognition and my Mega Project will be spread its awareness.

Lastly, I wanna sign off with this quote: