By Clara Nowak | UK Director
Thank you for donating to this appeal to help our local staff and their families during the Covid-19 outbreak in India. The situation was dreadful as ordinary people struggled to get the medical care and medicines needed for their loved ones, and health services became severely stretched. We are so grateful that the staff infected by the virus all survived. Thanks to your generosity we were able to supply them with medicines needed as well as PPE and supplements to keep all staff healthy.
We are at the stage now where things have settled considerably, and although we are always careful, the threat of Covid-19 is not so great. This appeal raised more money than was needed for the safety of our staff during the pandemic, which is amazing and shows how kind and compassionate our supporters are. As a result, we wish to use some of the money raised to make improvements to the lives of our staff, that are not Covid-related, and we want to make you aware of how the funds are to be used.
We will keep a General Medical Fund of £5,000 set aside to pay for hospital fees and medical bills for any staff that is sick or injured. We have a staff of 60 local people at TOLFA and for the last five years we have not had a dedicated staff room for them to their take breaks or eat lunch. We will use £4,000 to build a covered staff break area with seating and suitable drainage (for during the monsoon), where staff can take breaks away from the main hospital buildings. This amount will also cover the cost of building a covered area for the staff to park their motorbikes (the most commonly used transport to and from work), to protect them from the extremes of weather.
Lastly, we will use £1,640 of the money raised to pay for six months’ school fees for all staff with children in education. The cost of living is rising sharply in India, and we would like to ensure that education is not a necessary cut back that our staff are forced to make. This will be on a means tested basis with lower paid staff receiving a higher percentage towards school fees than higher paid staff.
From the donations raised for this project this leaves £2,200 which will remain as an emergency-only fund that will be used as and when at our discretion. We have been truly overwhelmed by the support we received in response to this appeal to help our staff during the Covid-19 crisis and we feel incredibly humbled to now be able to use the funds to keep supporting our staff in this way. We want to let you know that the donations you made then are still making a difference today. We hope that you will agree that what I have outlined above is a sensible and considerate plan for the donations you made. If you have further questions, please do get in touch with us at enquiries@tolfa.org.uk.
Thank you for your incredible support
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By Clara Nowak | UK Director
By Clara Nowak | UK Director
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