Today, India has confirmed nearly 14,000 cases of COVID19 and 452 deaths to date. Like many countries, India has a shortage of personal protective equipment in their hospitals. Of course this is vital for the protection of the doctors and nurses on the frontline of fighting the virus. The government is ramping up the manufacturing of necessary equipment as well as COVID19 tests which are also in very short supply. As well as a limited number of tests, so far India only has 111 testing centers to handle a population of 1.3 billion people. This is grossly inadequate. The number of critical care hospital beds is also very limited. This makes Nandri’s mission of limiting the spread of COVID19 amongst our families all the more important.
Our aim at Nandri is to protect and educate our families and as much as possible prevent the spread of the virus in the villages. We are implementing our education programmes and our mothers have been very receptive in following the guidelines. Our families are wearing masks and also manufacturing them to distribute in their villages. We demonstrated social distancing with one of our mothers groups to emphasize the importance of keeping two meters between yourself and others at all times.
We continue to monitor the welfare of all our families during this crisis. One woman who needed immediate aid is a widow who has kindly taken in a orphaned child, who had no other relatives to look after her. The widow who lives in a shack in the village, is a very poor daily wage worker who because of the 21 day lockdown had no money to feed herself and the child now in her care. Nandri provided her with rice and money to survive the lockdown. We have promised to support them through this very difficult time. Looking forward, we will also help this woman to keep the child in education so she will grow up to have the opportunity of a better future
Nandri is also providing feeding stations for those who are unable to work during the lockdown. We visited a village of Narikoravas people, nomadic gypsies who make their living by selling handmade goods on the streets. They were extremely grateful to Nandri for the emergency food. We also organised for them to access ongoing government aid.
For all our families, knowing that Nandri is there to help them get through this time of crisis, is a huge source of comfort. We will not let any of our families down and they know that our Nandri Family is there for them as long as they need our support. They are so grateful to us but it is the generosity of our wonderful donors who make our work possible. A heartfelt “Nandri” to you all.
