Meet Sabreena Sidiqi,hailing from Srinagar, she has done schooling from Presentation Convent School. After that pursued bachelors in Science from Womens College MA Road. She did Masters in Business Administration (MBA) from University of Kashmir with specialization in Marketing and Human Resource. Currently She is working as Project Officer at HELP Foundation for Mine Risk Education and Conventional Weapons Risk Reduction Project.
She with her organistaion is operating in four border districts of Jammu and Kashmir-Rajouri, Poonch, Baramulla and Kupwara. All these districts are highly sensitive and mostly affected by conflict. Besides poverty and health issues, the people living in remote border areas near Line of Control (LoC) and beyond fence have suffered lot of death, disability and destruction due to landmines and cross border shelling. These deadly weapons don’t discriminate between any one. Not only civilians but even security persons have suffered many casualties. Physical Rehabilitation is one way of helping the victims. But there has to be another mechanism to prevent casualties. Thus need for Risk Education.
She provides safety and security briefing to people living in these areas as to how they can enhance their knowledge and change their behavior in order to avoid landmine or unexploded ordinance casualties. She also work on community Based Reporting System and make them understand how they can report the landmine incidents or its presence to the authorities. So the main objective is to prevent death and disability.
She shared that the crucible or turning point of her life was September 2014 floods. It was back then when she got associated with different NGOs of the valley.
“Though I worked for a very brief time for Rehabilitation of flood victims, but the impact of it on me was very strong. While travelling to various flood affected areas and interacting with people, I realized that there are problems and sufferings bigger than floods or any other natural calamity”, she added.
She was pursuing my MPhil-Phd from University of Kashmir when she got an offer to work as Project Officer for Mine Risk Education and Conventional Weapons Risk Reduction. It was a pilot project in J&K. Without giving a second thought she joined it and eventually she left my Phd and continued with the same. It has been almost 2 years now since she is working for this project.
There have been lot of challenges, she faced. Since Mine Risk Education is a very sensitive project and the areas are always on security radar, she added. Thus we have to be very cautious when we travel to these areas. These areas are constantly under the threat of cross border shelling and our team had a narrow escape many a times. Once we go near LOC, we are completely isolated from rest of the world as its completely out of network coverage. From the last couple of years I am on the run beyond the fence (Line of Control) along with my team where death, disability and destruction has enveloped the humanity. And we hardly guarantee our safe return when landmines, cross border shelling and hostility between the two countries is flowing in their blood. It’s always ‘surrender to death’ in the morning and ‘thanks once more to life’ in the evening. Thus to work in No-Go-Zone has never been an easy task. But as they say it is highly risky conflict area and that’s why we operate there, thus the presence of conflict in itself is a motivating factor. At times even the civilians living in these areas pose a challenge when they expect a lot from us and we too have our limitations.
She said that the satisfaction I get at the end of the day, “It’s not only for what we do we are held responsible, but also for what we do not do”.
we all have a responsibility towards our society, there is no second thought about doing what I am doing. Besides that I am content with it. It Reminds me of a saying, “There is no greater joy nor greater reward than to make a fundamental difference in someone’s life”.
Truly she is a role model for youth . She proved that when your will is strong and you are highly determined and dedicated towards your goal no one can stop you.
“One person can make a difference and everyone should try. The time is always right to do what is right, as no act of kindness, however small, is ever wasted”.
It’s your turn to inspire and be a role model for society
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