For my book on children and youth in armed conflict, Dr. Z. A., Wani, a medical doctor from Srinagar in Kashmir sent me some articles on public health and mental health issues in the region after many years of insurgency that began in 1989 and is still continuing on and off. One of the articles (Wani, Z., A., et. al, 2008) was about a study that was conducted examining the time period between 1989 (when the insurgency began) and 2004, and it showed that there was an ”alarming rate” of people committing suicide, not only wanting to commit suicide, and that many of these people had been suffering from depression with a post-traumatic disorder as a result of the continuous chaotic insurgency environment. There are many people suffering mentally and emotionally for many years, and this kind of suffering also creates a lot of confusion and a sense of insecurity, not only for themselves but their families. This is also in a context where family members are also many times suffering from trauma and this is often unacknowledged. As a result there really is a great need to address these issues, to talk and learn about them and then to find a concrete way to provide people with some kind of help and assistance.

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