With international fundraising efforts rightly focused on the aftermath of the Nepal earthquake, it’s important to remember that there are worthy projects in the north of India that always need extra money. Children of Zanskar is a Kickstarter campaign that’s been set up by a pair of London creatives to raise money for schoolchildren in a remote valley of the Kashmir region, and there’s not long left to help get the project over the finishing line.
Jarek Kotomski and Joanna Niklas, aka Between Friends, are looking to support the youth of the idyllic but isolated village of Zanskar in the Lingshed valley. Around 115 children from the village use the local school, but they are in need of everything from a wooden floor for the classrooms to winter clothing to keep the savage Himalayan winter at bay; nearby Dras has been designated the second coldest place on earth. Although they face a hard childhood and a challenging future, the kids of Zanskar are an irrepressibly happy bunch, as illustrated by the many joyous portraits in Between Friends’ book. Pledging for the campaign finishes on 1 June, with options ranging from the knowledge that you’ve done a good thing to copies of the book with limited edition archival prints of its emotive photography. Head here to back the project.