COVID 19 EMERGENCY FUND for Nandri Mothers

by Nandri

Project Report | Apr 23, 2020
OUR MOTHERS GROUPS RISE TO THE CHALLENGE OF COVID19

By JANICE VARD SMITH | PROJECT LEADER

On 23rd April, India recorded 681 deaths and 21,393 confirmed cases of COVID19. Tamil Nadu where Nandri is situated, had 18 deaths attributed to the virus. The strict lockdown has been very difficult for our poor rural families but it has been successful in lowering the spread of the disease.

This week Joe, our CEO in India, delivered Nandri’s financial aid package for the COVID19 crisis to the leader of each of our mothers groups. Our mothers groups are a very important part of the structure of Nandri. There are 4721 mothers in 268 groups, each one headed up by a leader. Each group has between 15 - 20 members. A mother may decide to set up a group herself and become the leader or a leader is nominated by the other women in a mothers group. It is looked upon as a very important and responsible position in their villages.

WIth the finance that Nandri has provided to each of our leaders, they will make sure that each mother in their group has enough money to eat and buy the necessities for them and their families. As he visited all the villages, Joe took the opportunity to remind the leaders of their roles in educating their mothers' group on maintaining social distance and handwashing.

Each of our leaders have risen to the challenge of mentoring their group through the pandemic, as well as monitoring the mothers financial well being in this very difficult time. The mothers know that their leader is always there, as a representative of the Nandri Family, to help and guide them through this very challenging crisis.

Permalink

Apr 17, 2020
COVID19 - How Nandri is helping our families survive

By Janice Vard Smith | Project Leader

On 17th April, India confirmed nearly 14,000 cases of COVID19 and 452 deaths. 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.

Permalink

Apr 10, 2020
Update on COVID19 and how we are helping our families

By Janice Vard Smith | Project leader

India to date has 5865 confirmed cases of Covid19, with Delhi being the worst hit area. Authorities are worried that Indias healthcare system will not be able to cope as the virus spreads throughout the country. They are converting sports stadiums and train carriages into make shift hospitals. Tamil Nadu, where Nandri is situated reported a fresh spike of cases and presently the region has 834 people who have contracted the disease. This means that worryingly the region has the second highest number of infections in India.

Our aim is to try to stop the spread of the virus throughout our Nandri villages by educating our families on the importance of frequent hand washing and social distancing. As much as the recommended increase and implementation of these rules has been an adjustment to us in first world countries, this is going to be so much harder for our rural families in a 3rd world country who have no access to toilets or running water and live with large families in small dwellings. One of Nandri’s projects is to improve the living standards of their families by helping them to build toilets and have access to clean water. We are making progress but still have a long way to go.

In rural India the poor rarely have proper sanitation in their villages - defecating in fields is the norm. They have no access to running water in their homes and have to fetch water daily in buckets from the well to wash hands and rinse cooking utensils. This is why our education programme is so important for our families so that they understand the importance of these new measures to avoid being infected. We have implemented our programme already, we are also distributing leaflets promoting hand washing and it is being very welcomed by our mothers and their families. The mothers are also making masks for themselves and their families and also giving them to the police and other public figures.

During the 21 day lockdown our mothers will have no income. We have organised for the immediate distribution of emergency money to each family to help them through this extremely difficult time. Our mothers do not have access to bank accounts so this means our Nandri staff travelling to all of their villages in order to distribute the emergency funds to them. This in itself will be a huge undertaking but it is already underway. This will provide our families with enormous relief, not having to worry how they can afford to feed their children and themselves. Dealing with COVID19 is going to be a very frightening time for all our Nandri mothers and their families but we will be there for them in every way possible to help them get though this catastrophe. Without the help of our generous sponsors, none of this would be possible, so on behalf of all our families, thank you - or in the Tamil language, a big “Nandri” to you all.

Links:

https://www.nandri.org/

Permalink

‹ 1 2 3 4 5

About Project Reports

Project reports on GlobalGiving are posted directly to globalgiving.org by Project Leaders as they are completed, generally every 3-4 months. To protect the integrity of these documents, GlobalGiving does not alter them; therefore you may find some language or formatting issues.

If you donate to this project or have donated to this project, you can recieve an email when this project posts a report. You can also subscribe for reports without donating.