Respond & Relief to COVID-19 TamilNadu,India

The reporting period of three months had once again been totally focused on the COVID 19 pandemic related interventions. Like most part of the nation and in particular, the working villages and towns of SPPD also have been witnessing the impacts of the second wave of the corona pandemic in a big way.

Children and members of the families belonging to the unorganized labor working as daily wagers have been enduring the enormous fall outs of the lockdown induced by the pandemic. For the children of the daily wagers, the closure of schools for more than a year since the outbreak of the pandemic has had a telling effect on their physical and mental health.

SPPD has been supporting a total of 1500 such deprived children with monthly distribution of nutritional food kits consisting of nine nutritional food items enough to last for a month. Dates, lentils, nutritional mix, health drink, cow peas and chick peas are some of the components that formed part of the kits. As many as 5800 nutritional kits were provided to the children during the period. This intervention has gone a long way in preventing those children from falling prey to child labor and child marriage of girl children in a big way. The nutritional kits were effectively made use of by SPPD as a tool to negotiate with the parents to prevent them from sending their children for work and deciding to marry off the minor girl children.

Similarly, the families of unorganized labor such as daily wagers, road side vendors etc were given kits of groceries to last for two months. As many as 140 families of the unorganized sector were provided with these groceries kits during the period. These two interventions one for the children and the other for the livelihood lost families have been carried out with the sponsorship and support of the Give India online platform.

Apart from these main interventions the awareness generation on the need for vaccination against COVID 19 and the protection protocols such as wearing masks and social distancing were being carried out continuously during the three months period in our working areas.

Interventions for Covid19 lockdown

Migrant Laborers:

The industrial units and commercial establishments in which the migrant laborers were employed in the working areas of SPPD belonging to the districts of Tiruchirappalli, Karur and Perambalur had been shut all of a sudden leaving the migrant laborers clueless.   And all modes of transports had come to a standstill keeping the migrant laborers stranded. SPPD immediately stepped in and extended a helping hand to the interstate and inter district migrant laborers during these times of corona pandemic induced lockdown.

SPPD distributed immediate relief materials sponsored by online portal of Give India and the alumni of NIIT.   The stranded individuals and families belonging to the migrant labor sections were given immediate relief in the form of dry food rations. The batch of migrant laborers were given dry food rations comprising of cereals, pulses, food oil, wheat flour etc that would last a month for a family worth Rs. 3500/-.

Unorganized Laborers:

The workers belonging to the unorganized sector such as workers of restaurants, road side eateries, hawkers, workers of barber shops etc had to bore the brunt of lockdown blues in our region. The commercial establishments to which the workers were attached were all of a sudden had been shut leaving them clueless as all most all of them could not even get their pending wages. And they pushed to the point of starvation within a few days after the announcement of lockdown.

And SPPD immediately wanted to help them with relief materials and distributed dry rations to the affected families of these workers. Dry ration worth Rs3500…/ comprising of rice, wheat, pulses, cereals and food oil were given to them. As many as 3000 families belonging to these sections were given the same. For about four months since the beginning of lockdown this relief work was carried out by SPPD.

Hill tribals and potter communities:

The members of the nomadic hill tribal community of “Malai Kuravas” who had come down from the neighboring hills of Eastern ghats such as Kolli hills and Pachamalai hills camped at the plains near Musiri too suffered terribly due to the pandemic caused lockdown. The members of this community mainly the women used to be engaged in the work of basket weaving. They were literally starving as the demand for the bamboo baskets woven by had dried out completely. SPPD stepped in and helped the members of as many as 50 belonging to Musiri and Thuraiyur administrative blocks. These families were given dry food rations for a period of three months.

Similarly, the families of traditional potters who form part of resource poor communities of the working areas of SPPD received the food ration kits during the months of March, April and May consisting of the essential food items. A total of 25 families belonging to this community were given the food kits.

 Urban Homeless communities:

The lockdown announced by the government in the month of March literally left the homeless individuals and families who are part and parcel of the city of Chennai were pushed to despair. Food packets were given to the orphaned individuals mostly the aged and mentally unsound dwelling in the road sides of the city. The nomadic “kurava” families who lead a life like gypsies mainly dwell under the number of fly over bridges that criss –cross the city along the long stretch from vadaplani bus terminus to Avadi also were given the food packets daily apart from the members of the transgender community.

The   Covid19 pandemic have been casting its shadows on the children in the worst way. The schools remain shut for more than a year and this has not only impacted their academic wellbeing but their whole personality development have been badly dented. Both the psychological and physical needs are not being fulfilled because of long time closure of schools.

Children belonging to the marginalized sections and the rural kids who used to be getting their nutritional needs served by the free noon meals formerly are now deprived of the same. Under such circumstances, the on line Charity portal Give India came forward to help to fulfill the nutritional needs of the children affected by closure of schools. As many as 1000 children have been receiving food kit monthly in our working areas since the month of October 2020. The food kit combo comprises of pulses, health drink mix, date fruits etc enough to fulfill the needs of a child for a month.

This intervention made possible by the benevolence of the sponsors of Give India platform has served many purposes other than merely fulfilling the nutritional needs of children. That is because during the last one year since the outbreak of pandemic and lockdown caused livelihood loss have led to the reemergence of the evils like child labor and child marriage in the case of girl children. SPPD has effectively made use of this intervention of distributing food kit as negotiating tool to prevent the evils of child labor and child marriage in a big way.