By Subhrata Jena | Project Contributor
Executive Summary
The effect of the aggressive and brutal second wave of the COVID-19 pandemic is felt everywhere and by almost everyone across the board in India. Odisha a north-eastern state in India is fighting a deadly COVID-19 outbreak due to the second wave. Thousands of people every day are infected and struggling to get access to required medical treatment and compel them to stay in home isolation. Apart from this, Thousands of daily wage earners, hawkers, street vendors, and other unorganized sector people are affected due to sudden lockdown.
Given this, we are putting our best efforts to help these vulnerable people by facilitating access to required medical care and essential food supplies. The vulnerable families will be provided with a meal kit that can be used to cook meals for the family. We have a network of village-level volunteers who can do this job adhering to COVID protocols and continuing our work to mitigate the devastating impact of second wave.
Our COVID -19 Relief Work
With the commitment to reaching out and supporting the most underprivileged and vulnerable people -who are disproportionately impacted by this crisis, YCDA started its response activities in this 2nd wave of Pandemic with the announcement of the lockdown. Our support has been reached out to needy people in all through our different strategy & interventions. The communities we have covered through our efforts include children in vulnerable families, daily wage earners, women-headed households, migrants, beggars, and people with disabilities, chronic diseases and tribal communities.
Our Key interventions included:
Dry food ration kit support:
The second wave, however, caught many unawares and the virus spread like wildfire. With the virus rapidly moving to second and third tier towns as well as to rural areas, the state governments resorted to lockdowns as the main method of choice for containing infections. This posed tough livelihood and food insecurity situations for many families who were largely dependent on daily wage income. Taking this, as a quick emergency response we reached out to 258 vulnerable families of COVID affected & death of parents, migrants, single parents, families of women headed care givers, differently able person, aged left with no one to support. Each dry food kit contained of rice, oil, pulses, potatoes, flaked rice, biscuits onions, spices ,soaps etc. which could managed by a family for a month.
Awareness on COVID Appropriate Behavior & Vaccination Drive:
During this second wave, since April 2021 we have been actively involved in a proactive, mass vaccine campaign along with district administration & health workers. Community volunteers have been mobilized to reach out to the segments of population without access to smartphones or internet or have been unable to reach vaccination venues due to limited means. In rural areas peoples have myth on Vaccine so they are not willing to take it .
we have created mass awareness in the communities, discussed about precautionary measures/covid appropriate behaviors i.e use of face mask, practicing regular hand washing, avoiding unnecessary gatherings, physical distancing, do and don’t in home quarantine and importance of vaccination with fact information etc. Besides this Youth and Adolescent volunteers were engaged and sensitized in field areas and encouraged them to facilitate vaccination registration, mobilized community for reducing vaccination hesitancy and covid appropriate behavior.
Our initial drive with the support of health workers & village volunteers in the region of Western Odisha has been impacted in mobilizing in taking up vaccine by elderly & Individuals to some extent.
Matching People needs & Psychosocial Care:
Mostly due to the loss of their near & dear ones, closed down of schools, restriction in movements, not allowed for meeting with friends/peers etc. has been seen among the peoples. In this 2nd wave COVID Pandemic both the individuals along with children are severly affected with disorders like depression, pain attacks ,anxiety etc and struggling a lot to cope of it. There is severe need of Grief counseling as many of them are unable to see or touch their near & dear one which seriously affected the mental conditions of them.
We have been reached out to the families and provide them emotional supports which help the families to come out from the shock. We are being constantly engaged with the family members and children through telecalling, engaging children in various events like craft work ,storytelling, creative art, dancing, songs, etc. further to recognized their talents displayed their creative works in their home wall.
Testimonials:
"My Wife was affected with COVID-19 and lost her recently .I have two small children whom I am not able to feed them properly as I have to taking care of them and stop going for daily wage work . Thanks for your kind support it helps me to feed my children for a month."
"I lost my both parents in COVID and now I am living alone . Noone in my family is there to support me and feed me .I am in hunger for last week .I am happy to get your support .It helps me a lot."
Thanks to Supporters, Well Wishers & GLOBAL GIVING for their Generous Support....
Project reports on GlobalGiving are posted directly to globalgiving.org by Project Leaders as they are completed, generally every 3-4 months. To protect the integrity of these documents, GlobalGiving does not alter them; therefore you may find some language or formatting issues.
If you donate to this project or have donated to this project, you can receive an email when this project posts a report. You can also subscribe for reports without donating.
