Feed poor families during the COVID lockdown

Kaarikuzhy tribal setting is a remote area which is around 60km away from the populated city of Trivandrum district, Kerala where the people depend on daily wage activites for their living. Most of the people earn their income through farming in forest areas where they dwell and will sell their crops to the markets nearby. Since the market area is also rural based they don’t have much earnings as the value of crops are comparatively low there.

These people live inside the forest areas where they are vulnerable for the destruction of their cultivation due to unexpected attacks from wild animals. The pandemic period has overturned their lives to dilemma as they were facing wide spread farm loss due to animal attack and heavy rainfall along with the pandemic restriction protocols. The markets were closed till further notice and the government has restricted people from gathering in public. Thus their source of income was stopped and they found their lives in peril of survival.

Don Bosco Veedu Society with the help of the donors in GlobalGiving platform managed to supply food and nutrition kits for these people who were struggling for survival. 

The nutrition kits included:

Sugar - 1 Kg

Mustard - 1 pack

Atta flour - 1 pack

Wheat flour - 2Kg

Kadala Parippu - 1Kg

Salt - 1 pack

Turmeric powder - 1 pack

Oil - 2 Kg

Biscuit - 2 packs

Jeera - 1 pack

Pulses - 1 Kg

Around 180 kits were distributed to the families across the four targeted areas.

The people who received the kits were extremelyhappy that they had a trustworthy source to rely upon even at the midst of their miseries. Most of the people at these tribal settings were not able to avail dry rations from public distribution system as they don’t have any proper address or shelter. For them the nutrition kits were a great help for them to survive the pandemic period

Kerala is home to around 38.5 lakh migrant workers who have found shelter and home in the state. A study conducted by a social organisation, Centre for Policy and Development Studies, has found that except for around 4.5 lakh migrant labourers, the rest stayed back in the state  mostly owing to the care and attention provided by their employers, several of them providing them home, shelter, food and even money for their medical and other expenses.

Don Bosco Veedu Society along with its existing projects is committed to help these Migrant Labourers who were struggling to get food and nutrition amidst this Covid-19 Pandemic. Migrant workers around the country are facing wage cuts, mounting debts and uncertainty over their families’ future, many of whom have not returned the villages due to the pandemic. Also since these migrants are neither beneficiaries of the National Food Security Act, nor do they possess State cards, they rely on shelters and NGOs for basic everyday needs.

Don Bosco Veedu Society has identified various labourers and their families scattered around the city of Thiruvananthapuram with the help of government and police officials and were able to distribute food kits worth 1000 INR for a select 45 of them. 

The contents of food kit include:

1. RICE - 5Kg

2.Rice flour - 2 Kg

3. Wheat Flour- 1Kg

3. Onion - 1 Kg

4. Potato - 0.5 Kg

3. Mustard - 100gm

4. Corriander powder - 250gm

5. Chilli powder - 250gm

6. Turmeric powder - 250gm

7. Multi grain powder - 1 pack

8. Dates - 1 pack

9. Cashew - 1 pack

10. Sun Flower oil - 1Kg.

On the ground, Don Bosco Coordinators and volunteers were present throughout the project and they ensured that social distancing and other norms were strictly followed. 

As we face the second wave of pandemic the country is at the verge of another lockdown and restrictions. People across the city is facing unemployment and poverty in a large basis. We welcome the GlobalGiving donors for the further support of poor families across the city.