The Uttarakhand Project — Kedarnath Flash Flood Relief

Youth Forum's very first relief mission — and the experience that shaped everything that followed. In June 2013, catastrophic flash floods devastated Kedarnath. Several Youth Forum founders, who had long-standing personal bonds with the people of the Himalayas, immediately mobilised. With the cooperation of trusted local friends and Trepan Singh Bartwal as surveyor, the team reached 14 remote villages in the Kedarnath foothills — places inaccessible to most relief teams. They distributed essential winter support to 56 families (242 people: 45 men, 65 women, and 132 children under 10) who had been left with nothing. A Special Initiative: One family's child, Dilesh Singh Chowhan of Village Talla Gawana, was identified as particularly vulnerable. Youth Forum committed to sponsoring his education until Class XII — or transferring the sponsorship to the neediest student annually. This mission — emotionally and logistically gruelling — became the defining experience that led to Youth Forum's creation as a structured, community-rooted humanitarian organisation.