Owing to lockdowns, restricted mobility and economic losses, lakhs of individuals are now on the throes of poverty and destitution. A single year of COVID-19 has turned back all the development of the country, and pushed millions of urban and rural populace towards poverty.
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INDIAdonates, an NGO, which works pan-India with other small and mid-sized NGOs is working on providing wholesome grocery kits to absolute resource poor communities. INDIAdonates has launched the #FoodForSurvival campaign across 13 states, to serve people who come from already marginalized communities, and who have had a direct impact of COVID-19.
Among other states where INDIAdonates is running its mission, Assam was the first state for this intervention. When INDIAdonates started its intervention, Assam had already emerged as a COVID hotspot and parts of the state were still under lockdown. The places that were in the lockdown were also some of the most resource poor communities.
Without jobs, people were struggling to make ends meet, as ration was running out steadily. Realizing the urgency of the program in such small communities, INDIAdonates launched the campaign in Jorhat and Rani in Assam, serving 1695 individuals living in containment zones.
The beneficiaries were identified after consulting many community-based organisations to ascertain the poorest of the poor families in these areas.
The families were further endorsed by the Sarpanch of the village, after verifying their income bracket, and nature of job, which was daily wage earning, predominantly. So far, in the course of a month, INDIAdonates has completed its mission in Tripura, Manipur amongst 9 other states and have successfully served more than 7000 individuals with ration kits to suffice them for a month.
INDIAdonates also relaunched the campaign on its website with a ‘Build your own Kit’ mechanism which allowed donors to supply a customised grocery kit to the needy.
“While the need of the people is paramount, we also are accountable to our donors, and extremely grateful for their support throughout, therefore it is important for us to make the donation process absolutely seamless and systematic. The donors are entitled to know where and how their money is being utilised, and we at INDIAdonates are trying to give an evolving flavour of donation to them, by leveraging technology,” says INDIAdonates founders, Dr Sanjay Patra and Mr Sandeep Sharma in a joint statement.
