During a visit to Jammu & Kashmir in 2010, local widows and orphans were met in a series of first hand interviews that highlighted a very dire situation. The widows and their orphaned children there experience serious poverty and an extreme lack of resources while living in politically unstable and very remote areas, making it very difficult to survive and absolutely impossible to thrive or have a chance at any quality of life at all.

In answer to this, Caravan was founded in May of 2010 under the patronage of the Sheikhul-Hind Educational Charitable Trust (reg.5931) in New Delhi, India and began working to offer autonomy to widows and quality education to orphans.

Caravan strongly believes that the emotional support a family gives is the foundation of a strong and capable character. Without this support, orphans are bereft. With this in mind, Caravan has built a strong support system, whereby not only do the widows find support, but also the orphans are nurtured through constant contact, while remaining within familiar comfort zones.

Through financial support (direct monthly allowance to their accounts), individual training, tutoring and direct supervision, Caravan works with widows and orphans within their own homes and communities, to improve each family member's personal circumstances. Caravan’s approach is non-institutional and provides services in a way that does not estrange beneficiaries from their extended families and communities. As well as cutting down cost by using existing infrastructure such as schools, hospitals and education centres.

In addition, this model of work is highly replicable and gives great results in progress and impact on a reasonable budget, as it uses existing infrastructure. At this time there are no separate agencies dedicated to serving widows and orphans
like Caravan.