By Sunitha Krishnan | General Secretary
While the world came to a standstill and lockdowns were imposed all over, work from home became the norm for most employed. The Covid pandemic brought with it also great economic devastation effecting millions. And the most marginalized were the worst impacted pushing them to verge of starvation. This is directly impacted sex trafficking with a dramatic surge in the number of women who were sold into sex slavery by their own familiies.
So while businesses, corporations, educational institutions and even development sector stepped back to protect themselves from the virus, the Protective Homes/Shelters of Prajwala stepped forward to take care of those hapless victims who were sold during the pandemic to sustain their families.
As a safe shelter, the potential risk of infection to other residents was taken into consideration for the organization to set up a comprehensive quarantine facility that will take care of any newly rescued victim.
All effort was made to ensure minimal contact of the existing 300 residents to outside world but the multiple health ailments of the residents compelled the team to take them to infection porne hospitals for specialized care. The consequence of the same was a few residents catching the infection. At the peak of the pandemic over 14 residents and 10 staff were infected with Covid19. This forced the organization to set up its own medical facility for the care and treament of Covid positive.
In the meantime the residents who had a glimpse of what was happening outside felt strongly compelled to support the larger Covid relief work and proposed stiching of reusable masks as their contribution. 45,000 reusable masks were stiched by the residents and donated to the frontline workers of the Health Department. Simultaneously each staff with their own salaries decided to take care of the monthly requirement of groceries for five families.
Between the residents and staff over 80,000 people were provided Covid Relief in some form or other.
The Covid pandemic was a period of thanksgiving for the residents expressing their deep gratitude for all those working relentlessly to fight the pandemic and also in reaching out with compassion for those who were lesser previldged than them.
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