Born and brought up in Boniyar, a remote area of Baramulla district, Rameez completed his schooling there before pursuing higher education in Baramulla town. The project later became the subject of a research paper that he presented at a conference hosted by the Indian Institute of Management (IIM), Ahmedabad, in 2019. This belief became the foundation of the research paper that will now be presented at Columbia University. The study focuses on school safety and security, as well as protecting the social and emotional well-being of children. More importantly, he emphasises that protecting children’s education requires the collective efforts of teachers, education departments, disaster management authorities, communities and policymakers.