The floods that hit Kashmir valley in September last year, swelled the Khemil river that resulted in devastation of crops in Kupwara district. What made things worse for the residents was the lack of dredging in the river: the fertile land was fast turning barren. Community Correspondent Tabassum took the grievances of the locals to concerned authorities and showed them the video she had made. She was promised that the dredging will soon be started around Khemil.

As a direct consequence of her video, revamping of the blocks on Khemil — to change the direction of its flow and to keep water from entering colonies — that were hit by floods has started now. “Now the blocks will be safe and the crops we lost will also rise back with time, we are thankful to you,” Ghulam Rasool, a resident of the area, told CC Tabassum.

Video Volunteers has long recognised that there is a problem with the media coverage of Kashmir, and in response, we decided to bring our model of community video to Kashmir in September 2013, when we trained 11 Right to Information (RTI) activists as video reporters. The timing was fortuitous, because on the day the training ended, the floods began, and our network was there to document it. Since then, they have produced 35 videos and innumerable photo reports. These reports provide ample evidence that the main issue in this election was people’s development needs.