The girls of my Himalayan valley are not victims – education is the only bridge they need out of their isolation
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<p>In my tribe, the Dard Shin, girls’ dreams are often over by 13. It is time we cleared a path towards them all fulfilling their potential</p><p>I sit my office in Srinagar surrounded by the steady, safe hum of the secondary school where I work. As academic head, my mind is occupied with curriculums and pupil progress. But my soul is 130km north of the Jammu and Kashmir city, behind the jagged peaks of the Razdan Pass, in the silence of the Tulail valley.</p><p>I a
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The girls of my Himalayan valley are not victims – education is the only bridge they need out of their isolation Amreen Qadir in Srinagar In my tribe, the Dard Shin, girls’ dreams are often over by 13. It is time we cleared a path towards them all fulfilling their potential I sit my office in Srinagar surrounded by the steady, safe hum of the secondary school where I work. As academic head, my mind is occupied with curriculums and pupil progress. But my soul is 130km north of the Jammu and Kashmir city, behind the jagged peaks of the Razdan Pass, in the silence of the Tulail valley. I am a daughter of the Dard Shin. We are a tribe whose history is etched in the Himalayan granite by the glacial water of the Kishanganga River. My father became the first professor of commerce from Tulail. His struggle to education was physical. He walked through snow that reached his waist to find a world that did not know he existed. His journey from the remote highlands to higher education gave me wings to fly. Yetthose I left behind – the sisters of my tribe – are still grounded in the frost. For six months, snow seals the Tulail valley. In this frozen isolation, the Dard Shin women are the architects of survival. They are the first to break the ice on the water buckets in the dawn. Their hands never stop. They spin, they knead, they work until they collapse into sleep, only to wake and do it all again. In the middle of this hardship, the children of Tulail carry dreams. I remember nine-year-old Zubeida. “I want to be a doctor,” she told me. “When the snow is deep and the mothers are in pain, I want to be the one who knows how to make them better. I will wear a white coat like the snow, but I will bring warmth.” The path to a medical degree is blocked by more than just mountains. There is no high school here for her to attend. Twelve-year-old Irfan’s father and brothers are away working in the building sites of Shimla. Irfan’s jaw is set: “I don’t want to carry stones. I want to be ...
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