Care before counting
SAWAB’s impact is reflected in sustained programmes, long-term follow-up and care systems strengthened over time.
Impact
Evidence of continuity, not a wall of counters.
03
SAWAB’s impact is visible in programmes sustained over time, communities revisited, clinicians trained and care systems strengthened.
Return to SAWAB
How impact is understood
Depth before display.
Three principles guide how SAWAB reads change across time, institutions and communities.
Knowledge through continuity
Long follow-up periods, repeated community engagement and ongoing medical education connect immediate care with durable learning.
Systems strengthened from within
Training non-psychiatric clinicians and working through existing community institutions expands the reach of informed mental-health care.
Work over time
Selected milestones and contributionsDefeat Depression Programme
Non-psychiatric clinicians, medical trainees and frontline doctors were trained to identify and manage common mental disorders.
Community mental-health programme
Kaz de Jong of MSF Amsterdam inaugurated Kashmir’s community mental-health programme at SKICC.
Advocacy for mental-health infrastructure
SAWAB’s public-interest litigation drew attention to inadequate psychiatric-care facilities serving Kashmir, Ladakh and adjoining areas of Jammu province.
Waltengo Nar follow-up
A sustained follow-up of survivors of the February 2005 snowstorm has continued for two decades, combining care with disaster and trauma research.
A living programme of learning
Continuing Medical Education events in September 2025 reflected SAWAB’s continuing emphasis on evidence, knowledge sharing and capacity building.
Impact in public record
Four views of change, need and continuity.
Independent reporting places SAWAB’s programmes beside the wider mental-health landscape in Kashmir.
Morning Kashmir
SAWAB completes 10-year mental-health initiative in Ganderbal
Reporting on a decade of locally sustained mental-health work and capacity building in Ganderbal.
Kashmir Vision
Access to mental healthcare in the community
Coverage of a multi-institutional conference on decentralised, culturally appropriate and accessible care.
Kashmir Life
Kashmir’s Mindscape: Trauma and Healing
A wide-ranging feature on trauma, psychiatry, stigma, professional learning and community support in Kashmir.
Al Jazeera
Kashmir’s mental-health crisis
Independent reporting that situates community care within the wider scale of conflict-related distress and unmet need.
In the public record
The scale of need, recorded as it unfolded.
Archive reporting helps place today's work in context: rising demand, limited infrastructure and a generation living with prolonged stress.
Explore the full press archive80,000 Kashmiris visited a mental-health doctor in 2006
A contemporaneous account of the scale of need, limited specialist capacity and the growing demand for district-level mental-health services.
ImpactClinicalAccess
Mental hospital shrinks as patients multiply
An early record of rising patient numbers, crowded wards and the need for trained staff, public awareness and humane mental-health care.
ClinicalImpactHistory
The manifestation of anger among Kashmir's trauma generation
An interview on the emotional consequences of prolonged uncertainty for children and young people, and the role of listening, support and resilience.
ResearchYouthTrauma
A systems story
Building capacity where specialists were scarce.
The Defeat Depression Programme trained faculty, medical trainees and frontline doctors to identify and manage common mental disorders. Its significance was not a headline statistic, but the strengthening of the general healthcare system’s ability to respond.
Explore academic work