Irfan Shahmiri

Founder

Irfan Shahmiri is the founder of CHINAR International (2003)[1], an Indian non-profit working on orphans & child care, livelihood and mental health from Srinagar.

Irfan Shahmiri is a Kashmiri-American engineer and non-profit executive who is a founding member and global executive director of CHINAR International, an organisation working with orphans, widows, vulnerable children and marginalised young people in Jammu and Kashmir.

Early life and education

Shahmiri grew up in Kashmir. He holds a BE from the National Institute of Technology, Srinagar, and an MS from the University of Florida, Gainesville.

Career

Shahmiri spent about two decades working for companies in the United States, including Digital Equipment Corporation, Compaq, Hewlett-Packard, Fannie Mae and Microsoft. He is a founding member of both CHINAR organisations — the entity registered in Virginia in the United States in 2003 and the organisation in Srinagar, India, in 2011 — and in 2011 he left his job at Microsoft to work on CHINAR full time.

As chief architect of the organisation in both countries he has directed its growth into one of the larger non-profits operating in Jammu and Kashmir. CHINAR describes itself as non-political and non-profit, and runs programmes in child development, quality education, livelihood support, youth development and community transformation, together with work for children with special needs, a remote valley transformation project and crisis relief.[2][3][4]

CHINAR International

CHINAR (Child Nurture And Relief) International is a Srinagar-based non-political, non-profit organisation transforming the lives of orphans, widows, vulnerable children and marginalised youth in Kashmir. Its programmes span residential and community-based child care, mental health awareness with IMHANS, youth skilling and a Small Business Support Programme that funds micro-entrepreneurs across the Valley.

CHINAR International reports the following, on its own site: