Kupwara is a district in Kashmir located just next to the Pakistan border.  It is 118 km away from Wayil, and takes 3 and a half hours to drive there, and nearly 5 hours for someone to travel by bus to the Hope Disability Centre in Wayil. This is too difficult for persons with disabilities to come regularly for treatment, so it has been a dream for a long time to have a permanent disability centre located in Kupwara. 

Because of the long summer strike last year in the Kashmir Valley which shut down all roads with curfew for several months due to the shooting of a young Kashmiri boy by the armed forces, the building has taken longer than expected. Also the costs have escalated in that time by about 15-20% for some materials and labour.

So about US$4500 will be sought, and hopefully that money may be recouped from funds sent by MEND 6 months ago that were not received by Hope Centre due to some major banking irregularity!

MEND helped with the application for this new centre, which took a lot of detail, to get it right so that the donor was happy. MEND is also a monitor.