For all of us, the outbreak of Covid-19 has changed our every day life completely. Most of us are now learning to live with a lockdown - limiting our time outside, distancing ourselves from others and working from home. All with the hope that doing so will help stop the spread of the virus. Its a difficult time but were learning to adapt because that will protect lives.

While we ride out this calamity in the comfort of our homes we need to take a moment to appreciate the privilege that most of us take for granted. Food, water, shelter - these are all basic rights that many of us, thankfully, have easy and comfortable access to.

But, for many across the world, lockdown is an extremely different and harsh reality where working from home to get an income isnt an option. In many parts of the world, people survive on a daily wage and lockdown means this is impossible. Countless numbers of people are now unable to provide daily food and water for their families and so alongside Coronavirus, there is now another more dangerous threat to their life - starvation. In the past few days, Road to Freedom’s team on the ground in Hyderabad, Pakistan have informed us of hundreds of men, women and children in villages all over Pakistan who are in desperate need of rations to survive the next few months. Just in the past week, we have learnt that a one and a half year old baby lost his life to an ongoing illness as his father was unable to pay for his medications when he stopped getting his daily wage due to the lockdown. Widows and elderly women are also finding this time incredibly difficult with no reliable and regular source of food coming in. Queues of people have been waiting all day outside our base in Hyderabad waiting for rations to be distributed. Donations are coming in but there are still so many families to feed and we have been travelling to villages such as Detha in Sindh in order to reach as many people as possible.

Along with the partners on the ground, Road to Freedom are seeking to raise £2000 with which we will be providing financial aid to families in Sindh. A month of rations costs around 3000 Pakistani rupees (approx £15). We hope to also give families support for rent and medicines as needed. With Ramadan only a week away, food prices are already high and families need to stock up to prepare for next month.

Donate now if you would like to get involved and support our work. Road to Freedom is committed to working on a 100% donation policy and we make sure we personally distribute aid where its needed the most.

This is a tough time for so many of us but together, we can hopefully make lockdown more liveable for thousands of people.

Thank you! 

Donate now if you would like to get involved with #rtflockdownsupport - www.justgiving.com/campaign/rtfcovidsupport