HELP COVID-19 AFFECTED IN INDIA

Dear friends,

Greetings!

While we are used to behave in the new normal world, a few challenges of the pandemic continue to hit some of us even if we are fully vaccinated. Our staff is taking utmost care to educate every single beneficiary in our project area with regards to Covid preventive measures like maintaining hygiene and social distancing. We could reach out to 15 Covid affected and very needy families in Kuttanadu area in Kerala and transfer cash to their bank accounts because of the support you raised through this project. We also provided financial assistance to 15 Covid affected and deprived families from Pune. Thank you for pitching in the right moment!

Our Home Chef course has been a boon for many aspiring women who lost their livelihood in the pandemic. About 20 women recently completed cake course and some of them mastered the art of baking so well that they are taking cake orders from their homes. Another 15 women completed a crash course on Modak making just before Ganpati and they started accepting Modak orders. Small savings also mean a lot for them as it comes handy for their familial needs like tuition fees of their children, unforeseen expenditures etc. The pandemic also opened up new avenues for many of them. Thank you for supporting this project.

Dipti and her family:

Dipti is a student under our sponsorship program. Her mother’s name is Vidya who tested Covid positive in April 2021. Her situation worsened so she had to be hospitalized. However, the situation was so bad in Pune then that she could not get oxygen bed. Therefore, her brother took her to Navi Mumbai where she got a bed and treated for fifteen days in the hospital. The family had to pay 73000 for the entire treatment. It was beyond their capacity. There are four people in her family including Dipti, her parents and her grandmother. Her father works as a peon in the office and earns Rs.8000 per month. Vidya also works as a cook in the neighbourhood and earns between 4000 to 5000 per month. They live in a small house of two rooms.

Vidya was in home isolation after getting a discharge from the hospital. Dipti’s grandmother is old and can not do any work. She was under high risk of contracting Covid due to her age. Her medical expenses are about Rs. 3,000 per month for the treatment of diabetes and blood pressure. Dipti is studying in 12th standard. She is also preparing for UPSC exam. The first lockdown in 2020 was very tough for them. Dipti’s parents had no work and no salary for more than 3 months and therefore they went to their native place in Konkan for the few months and returned only after the situation in Pune came under control.

The family had borrowed Rs. 50,000 from relatives for Vidya’s hospital expenses as they could shell out only Rs. 23000 from their meagre salary. They needed some financial help because their earning is not sufficient to meet medical and household expenses. Thus, considering all the things and the verification, IDEA Foundation provided financial support of Rs. 12000 to Dipti’s family. They expressed their gratitude towards IDEA foundation and donors like you for providing financial and emotional support. They went through a lot of trauma during that time not only because of the fear of infection but also because of the increasing charges in the hospital as the time went by. At one point of time, it became impossible to pay the lumpsum amount, so they had to borrow money from the relative. IDEA pitched in the right moment and offered financial assistance with which they could repay some of the amount they had borrowed. They still need support to repay the remaining amount. IDEA staff is in touch with them and provides moral support because of which they never feel alone. IDEA has also been providing educational support to Dipti for the last six years.

Now, Vidya has recovered and resumed her duties slowly from August 2021. Thank you for being an angel and safeguarding her life!

Links:

• IDEA Foundation

Dear friends, 

Greetings to all of you! Hope all of you are doing well.

COVID 10 has affected the underprivileged communities beyond repair, their very existence threatened because of lack of income to meet the basic necessities. Many NGOs like IDEA has taken up the responsibility to help them survive this difficult phase. We are working on immediate relief now as the pandemic is creating confusion and uncertainty of the future. As per news, the third wave is going to hit us any time soon. 

With your generous donations we are providing need based support to the poor in our project locations . In some locations, it is providing immediate relief such as grocery kits or cooked food .

As you know, with the COVID 19 outbreak, many flourishing businesses have closed down. Daily wage workers and many others who are working with small and medium establishment or as contractual workers even in bigger establishment have lost their job. When the male  bread winners have lost women have stepped in to become the bread winners of the family with their acquired skills in tailoring , Beauty care, catering or Craft and Art . Your donations have enabled us in providing seed money or additional skilling to run their small business.  

Food businesses still has good scope, so we are encouraging our Home Chef ( Food & catering ) students to start home based businesses and encourage them to do online delivery of foods. Under our regular or short  Home chef course the participants are taught different cooking methods, importance of hygiene, nutrition, healthy cooking, different cuisines and recipes, baking etc.

We have conducted a 12 day entrepreneur development program, that covered all the topics on starting a business. 71 students participated and by the end of the program the participants were confident enough to start earning through their culinary skills. We are helping them to get the license needed to start food business along with granting seed money for the initial expenses.

Some of our students have already started home based catering services to deliver food to the families in quarantine. They follow all the safety measures and COVID protocols.

Our educational support programs are also facing challenges as there is one more gap to fill, the digital gap. Many of the students are still struggling to get an access to a smart device/internet to continue education online. With your gracious support we have enabled 2 schools in Kerala to achieve 100 % of the enrolled children are attending online classes by providing smart phones to  children who do not have a smart phone at home .

We have a lot more children to support in all our locations in Pune in Maharashtra  & Kerala. Please continue to support us , as the new academic year has already started in India in June and we want to make sure that none of the children are left behind because of the lack of access to online education. And many families can come out of the clutches of extreme poverty .  

 Thank you!