Global Youth Foundation sets up facilitation centre offering free legal aid, document drafting, and a dedicated grievance cell for the underprivileged in North Kashmir.
Baramulla, Feb 14: For most people in North Kashmir, engaging with the government is rarely straightforward. To apply for a certificate, file an appeal, or simply figure out which welfare scheme one qualifies for often means endless rounds of offices, uncooperative clerks, and the quiet desperation of watching your entitlements slip through bureaucratic cracks.
Those with money hire touts who know which windows to knock on. Those without often give up.
In Baramulla town, a new initiative is trying to change that calculus, even if incrementally. The Global Youth Foundation, a civil society organisation led by Touseef Raina, opened a facilitation centre on Friday aimed specifically at underprivileged residents who find the administrative machinery difficult to navigate.
The premise is simple but significant a public help desk open ten hours daily, free drafting of official documents, legal assistance, and a dedicated cell to pursue grievances with the authorities. The Foundation also plans to offer guidance on government schemes, education and scholarship counselling, and medical aid, with cancer patients given priority.
At the inauguration, attended by local residents and volunteers, Raina framed the initiative as an attempt to bridge a fundamental gap in access.
“Our commitment is to serve with transparency, dedication and compassion,” he said. “This centre will act as a bridge between the needy and the system. No citizen should feel helpless due to lack of resources or awareness.”
For those who gathered at the event, the intervention spoke to a deeper reality. In large parts of Kashmir, access to legal and administrative support remains deeply uneven – a fault line that often determines whether a person receives their due or is left navigating a complex system entirely alone. The new centre, locals said, is a recognition that good intentions must be backed by practical support.
Whether it can live up to that promise remains to be seen. But for now, in a town where the distance to the nearest tehsil office can feel longer than the miles suggest, it is at least a step toward making the system feel a little less far away.
