Story

Update 28th April 2021

As we all have been witnessing, the crisis in India is deepening and spreading. The second wave of pandemic (CV-19) is affecting almost two-thirds of the population directly or indirectly. This second wave comes on the back of widespread food and financial insecurity among the poorest households in India. According to an estimate (by the Indian Institute of Technology), the pandemic may cause serious hunger, unemployment and medical emergencies this year.

The situation is precarious in extremely polluted cities like New Delhi where many people have died, mostly due to lack of oxygen and access to timely treatment. Lockdowns have been imposed in the States of New Delhi, Karnataka, and in many parts of Maharashtra, Kerala, Tamil Nadu, and Gujarat. As we saw with the first lockdown, thousands of migrant workers have again started to return to their home villages. The uncontrollable spread of Covid-19 is reaching the already vulnerable communities in rural India, home to 800 million Indians.

We have been in touch with our partners in India and they are expecting the coming weeks to get much worse. They continue to work tirelessly to support the communities they work with and to strengthen community, humanity, and solidarity.

We continue to offer support and raise funds through our solidarity appeal which we started at the beginning of the pandemic in 2020.

The communities where partners have been working in, often for decades, are some of the poorest in India. Many are/were homes to migrant workers who left because of poverty who are now being forced to return. We continue to humbly ask you to share what you can with the women, men and children of the communities where partners are working.

At present, our partners are asking for support to contribute to the following activities:

Ekta Parishad, Nationwide (with a greater focus in Chhattisgarh and Madhya Pradesh):

- Ensure food materials to the poorest of poor people and protect them from hunger or physical illness that emerges after food shortages.

- Ensure emergency medical assistance to the poor people including providing emergency ambulance services, financial assistance for vaccinations and oxygen cylinders, distribution of masks and providing financial assistance to Ekta Parishads frontline activists in case of medical treatment.

Nav Bharat Jagriti Kendra (NBJK), Jharkhand and Bihar:

- NBJK has turned one ward in their eye-hospital to a Covid ward where they will provide 30 beds for Covid patients. Twenty of them will be provided with oxygen.

- An emergency pool of oximeters, steam-inhalers, nebulizers, and Oxygen Cylinder/ concentrators will be made available for the patients in Hazaribagh district. Through newspapers and other communication tools, Covid-patients from marginalised backgrounds will learn of these services and encouraged to make use of them for urgent situations.

- Support to Covid patients who cant afford care will be given through mobilising essential medicine kits required for the treatment of Covid. These will be acquired from manufacturers/stockists as they are not available in local medicine shops or in government Community health centres or public health centres.

- Leaflets in the local language will be printed and distributed with useful telephone numbers and information about safety against Covid and steps to take for immediate relief at home or whether to have a consultation with doctors online and, in serious conditions, to go to hospital.

- To provide PPE Kits, hand-sanitizers, general masks, Oxygen Masks and other essential materials to health workers in need and to patients as per their needs.

Regional Centre for Development Cooperation (RCDC), Odisha:

- Relief and awareness activities

- Providing mask and sanitiser kits, and if lockdowns are imposed, provide personal hygiene kits to women.

- Looking after the needs of the elderly and disabled.

- Arranging treatment and hospital admission for the sick.

- Counselling those affected by disease and livelihood impairment/ loss.

- Integrating government schemes and programmes that seek to address the needs of people under lockdown.

- Guiding the in-country migrants and looking after their testing and quarantine needs.

- Ensuring livelihoods options for in-country migrants.

- Setting up herbal gardens and engaging with local herbalists.

- Strengthening home-based nutrition gardens.

Centre for Rural Systems and Development (CRUSADE), Tiruvallur District, Tamil Nadu:

- Providing one kg each of two types of pulses, oil, jaggery and ragi flour to 2000 families.

- Testing the community for fever and oxygen levels to limit the spread of Covid.

- Provide health supplements and masks.

Association for Sarva Seva Farms (ASSEFA), Tamil Nadu:

- Awareness-creation amongst the public on preventive measures against Covid 19 wearing masks, hand washing, social distancing and vaccination.

- Strengthen primary Health Centres (PHCs) campus: Men and materials are available in PHCs, but the resources are limited. It is proposed to fill up the gaps to make the PHCs congenial to the patients with facilities such as availability of safe drinking water, medical waste disposal, wheelchairs, special facilities for people living with a disability, planting tree crops, fencing, etc.

- Support sanitation workers with the supply of preventive kits masks, sanitisers, sterilized cover coats and other essential supplies.

- Supply of food-pack materials.

- Provide safe drinking water.

- Promotion of tree crops in the community lands, as well as in interested farmers land to create a healthy environment.

EquiDiversity Foundation (EDF), West Bengal:

- Work with the government health team (BMOH) at the Block level for vaccination drives. EDF will be to make people aware, mobilize the community and support the health team on the days of the campaign for refreshments.

- Provide one-month dry rations for families with covid positive patients and those who will be hit hard due to the lockdown.

- Revival and strengthening of the Covid Isolation Centre in Sreenarayanpur Purnachandrapur GP, Pathar Protima.

- Nutrition garden programme, agriculture/horticulture seed and sapling distribution for the affected families.

- Psycho-social support to women, children, youth and EDF team to deal with the calamity and strengthen resilience- telephone connection support.

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April 2020

Across much of Europe, many people have experienced a public health crisis which has provoked many Governments to take forward urgent measures. Gradually these have affected our public health but they all have significant social and economic consequences. In the UK, as we write this, over a million people are new claimants for Universal Credit, Food Banks are in crisis, we have deep concerns for rough sleepers and there is a disturbing rise in violence against women in their homes. At the same time, we have widespread examples of community, humanity and solidarity all linked to a discovering and rediscovering of the deep importance of sharing and caring.

Across India, the contrasts could not be greater. By 8th April 2020 there had been 5,274 cases and 149 deaths due to Coronavirus. The social and economic effects of the Prime Minister Narendra Modi declared 21-day lockdown that began on 24th March 2020 are almost impossible to fully appreciate. As 94% of the roughly 400million women and men in the workforce are in the informal sector, this has meant an instant loss of income, livelihoods, ability to buy food and pay rent. It is estimated there have already been a minimum of 136million jobs lost. Within the first few days of the lockdown, there was a truly mass exodus from cities and large towns across India of at least 100million people. This is eight times the people displaced by Partition! The consequences for women, men and children who were already social and economically vulnerable are enormous and disturbing.

There has been regular communication between Action Village India and partners across India. Here we share some of the challenges they are facing and the dramatic changes to their lives and planned work that has been forced upon them and their communities. All partners are already responding to the social and economic challenges provoked by the precipitous lockdown. Ekta Parishad shares the vital responses to the situations of some migrant workers and vital support packages for people returning from cities to their villages who are asked to self-isolate. No panic buying, no supermarket queues, no toilet paper wars just straightforwardly food for 14 days and a place to be safe. ASSEFA are responding to the special challenges for the 233 widows, destitute and deserted women in Kariyapatti and Natham areas whose ongoing support has been forced to stop.

In the midst of these challenges, partners are working to strengthen community, humanity and solidarity. They have shared requests for our support, our solidarity and we are simply sharing these requests with you.

We have launched a Solidarity Appeal.

We fully appreciate and respect that we are all facing numerous challenges at present.

The communities where partners have been working in, often for decades, are some of the poorest in India. Many are/were homes to migrant workers who left because of poverty who are now being forced to return. We are humbly asking you to share what you can with the women, men and children of the communities where partners are working.

Take care

With our deep thanks

Staff, trustees and volunteers of Action Village India