Relief Work - Bihar Unit
SLIC team (Deepak Kumar Singh, Shashwat, Vishal and Fazal Abdali) initiated the identification of the vulnerable families and plan of action on the very next day of the first lockdown. The team further expanded by including ground activists, students and other individuals from the marginalized communities for identification.
Response
Soon after the subsequent lockdown was imposed the unit took prompt action and swift decisions in order to mitigate the hardships caused due to the lockdown. Initially, after getting ground reality responses from various organizations, the unit assisted them to approach the government through representation letters to the concerned authorities pleading to take immediate action for basic necessity & support. Furthermore, applications on various pertinent issues were also sent to the Hon’ble Chief Justice of the Patna High Court apprising about the ground situation. Initially, we facilitated help by connecting the needy persons with the local administration but soon a felt need arose wherein it was decided to step in providing social service and supporting hands to the community. Thus, the unit soon intervened on-field along with other organizations. With the aid of several organisations such as Empowering Marginalised People Foundation (EMPF), Aaruni Charitable Trust, Corona Warriors and Janman we were able to raise funds and design the roadmap. The SLIC unit started to collaborate with local organisations/ NGOs/ Trust to identify and reach out to the poor and needy and also stepped in for crowdfunding. After a proper brainstorming and analysing the ground realities, two basic urgent necessities were identified and support was extended.
The extended supports are as follows :
1. Dry Ration Drive: Seeing the situation the team decided to carry out a Dry Ration drive. With the help of local volunteers, social activists and facilitators we identified families we were in dire need of food and most vulnerable. Thereafter, our team visited the field for fact-finding to ensure that the help is reaching out to the neediest. We firmly focused on providing help to vulnerable populations such as Old age people, pregnant women, lactating mothers, Differently abled persons, transgender community etc. Our ration kit ensured the sustenance of a family of four people for three weeks. The ration kit provided by us contained the following items:
1. Rice -5 Kg 2. Pulses -5 Kg 3.Flour -5 Kg 4. Salt -1 Kg 5. Sugar -1Kg 6. Masala -4 Packets 7. Mustard Oil -1 Ltr
Till date with the aid of our collaborators and donees, we have reached out to more than Four Hundred and Fifty (450) families which include forty-six (46) persons from the transgender community also.
2. Sanitation and Hygiene Drive: The team while carrying out the Dry Ration Drive realised that there is an imminent need to focus on sanitation and hygiene as well. We realised that eventually the restrictions imposed by the Administration will be relaxed, keeping us at high risk of community spread. Therefore, the unit decided to distribute Soap Cake, High-Quality Hand Sanitizers, and Sanitary Pads to the people who were in dire need of it.
Firstly, with the help of local volunteers, social activists we identified the location and target population where the above-mentioned items needed to be distributed and thereafter decided to carry out the drive. Therefore, keeping this in mind we decided to distribute the hand sanitisers to Street vendors, Sanitation workers, Security Guards, Police officials at various check posts and house help.
Till date, we have distributed around 600 high-quality hand sanitizer, 500 soap cakes and 50 sanitary pads in Patna.