Kashmir has a lot of population that lives below the poverty line. Such families found it hard to meet the basic needs of their family, say it is educational needs, food and nutrition or any other need for survival. A person with daughter or even son lives under a burden of their marriage. Daughter’s marriage is being considered more crucial than of son’s. Dowry and other heavy expenses for a daughter’s marriage is the burden under which a father always found himself. In Kashmir, a simple marriage ceremony costs INR. 100,000.00 on an average. A person who works day and night and earn to just feed his family can rarely save for his children’s marriage. Reports have shown that more than 30,000 adult girls who are either in the prime of their youth and wants to marry or girls who have crossed the average age to get married are still unmarried as their families cannot meet the expenses of their marriage. The exact numbers of girls might be higher than the study shows as no recent studies have be done.

Al Shujaiat Foundation has started an initiative to help such poor families who cannot afford the expenses of the daughter’s marriage. We help poor families by providing them INR. 50,000.00 and also some clothing and other most needed items. So far with the help of our genuine donors Al Shujaiat Foundation has been able to assist 100 beneficiaries in Kashmir valley. The outcomes of the project has been very satisfying and proved to be a sort of relief to the needy families. Family members of many families had been going through anxiety and depression because of the burden they have been feeling on their shoulders from decades. Cases of drug abuse and indulging in other illegal activities have been seen as a result of such anxiety and depression. We consider the biggest achievement of our project is that we have been able to help families not only in managing the expenses of the marriage but also to help their dear ones to leave the path of drug abuse and other anti social activities in which they got themselves due to stress and anxiety.

Now, as people came to know our marriage assistance project, we have been receiving thousands of applications for the assistance. We alone cannot reach to everyone and need support of our sponsors/donors from different parts of the country. We will appreciate if people would join us in this noble cause to help the neediest and deserving daughters.