Help Us Distribute Food To Daily Wage Earners' Families Suffering From Lockdown Due To Covid -19 Pandemic

In the context of Coronavirus, currently the daily wage earners face several new challenges as a result of the government imposed nationwide lockdown to fight the pandemic. The impact of the lockdown is more pronounced for some sections of the society than the others. Most of the daily wage earners, servants, construction workers, daily labourers, Rickshaw- Pullers, Balloon sellers , and so on  who have working in low paying jobs and earning on a daily wage basis, have been amongst those who are left jobless, hungry and struggling to make ends meet. A sudden halt in the flow of income has resulted in a severe shortage of money to sustain themselves since their savings is insufficient to meet contingency needs.

Since the government declared nation-wide lockdown since March 25, 2020 the workers have not earned any income.                                               

Given this background, KNS Academy plans to provide as much humanitarian assistance as possible to help these workers sail through this crisis. Thus, KNS Academy plans to distribute COVID 19 relief kits with essential provisions to 2,000 workers and their families, to prevent hunger and destitution during the COVID 19 crisis.

It is important that in times like this we show solidarity and come forward to help the ones in need. KNS Academy is on a mission to make Indians more aware of and ready to fight the pandemic. We have started this campaign to raise funds for the same.

The money raised will be used to:

● We are trying to help the families of these daily wage earners by supplying them with   a GROCERY KIT that can sustain their families for 2 weeks.

● A grocery kit each kit will provide provisions to last for 2 week, as shown in Table 1 below:

 The cost of feeding and sustaining a whole family for 2 weeks is only 800 rupees. 

Table 1: Details about materials in the COVID 19 relief kit

● Give free masks and sanitizers to help prevent the spread of the virus.

KNS Academy has developed several protocols during the implementation of relief activities, as follows:

·         Organizational preparation for relief work. Soon after the crisis started, KNS Academy has obtained permission from the police and the Municipal Corporation for its workers and food vehicles to move around the city during the lockdown.

·         Ensuring the supply chain: KNS Academy has identified 6 wholesale dealers who can supply the required grocery and sanitation products needed to prepare the COVID 19 relief kits.

·         Preparing individual family kits: Once the wholesale material is received in KNS Academy office, the KNS team packs the kits, each kit sufficient for one family, or a group of 3 single men. These are then loaded on to the Van for taking to workers community .

Challenge on hand

Social distancing is necessary to help limit the spread of the virus, but for the economically weaker sections of society the food insecurity is a much more serious issue than the disease itself as typically they cannot afford to stock up on food supplies. In addition, malnutrition increases vulnerability to disease. 

Solution

This funds shall help reduce the food insecurity during this outbreak. Healthy wholesome food with adequate nutrition on a daily basis reduces the health risk during this pandemic.

Impact

This funds shall stop this pandemic from turning into a food security crisis leading to a health crisis.

Please donate towards this noble cause and join the #fight against Corona. 

Background of KNS Academy

Kalyani Netaji Subhash Academy is an non-profit, non-governmental organization, with 6 years’ experience of successful developmental initiatives throughout West Bengal. Since the past 6 years, KNS Academy has worked on the issues of daily wage workers in rural West Bengal with a special focus on women and children. KNS Academy works towards enhancing the voice of these workers and with the philosophy that all women, men and children have the basic human rights to dignity and self-determination, and that all people should have the opportunity and choice to enhance their own potential and well-being. KNS Academy works with those communities which are most vulnerable in terms of poverty and discrimination and are unreached.