Income through agriculture for Tamil Nadu Families

We were thrilled last month to receive a generous grant from GlobalGiving's Disaster Relief fund to support our emergency relief activities.  We were able to purchase and distribute a month’s worth of rice and groceries to 506 families in Trichy and to send funds to our partners to purchase and distribute rations for 494 families further afield.

The residents of VOICE Trust’s Friendship Home for parentless and at-risk children received, assembled and packed the relief rations in cloth bags printed with the names of supporting organizations, for distribution as follows:

* Groceries for 75 families of to tribals and the landless labourers were distributed by Shine TREEchy 
* Groceries for 100 refugee families and household afflicted by HIV/AIDS were distributed by Manitham Organization 
* VOICE Trust staff and volunteers distributed rations to:

• 25 families of sex workers who had assembled in Siruganur Police Station for counseling (dispensed through the Inspector on duty) 
• 73  families daily-wage workers in Gandhi Nagar in Konalai Village 
• 208 differently abled individuals in Siruganur, C.R. Palayam & Tirupattur
• barbers, sweepers and cleaners around the VOICE Trust offices
•  25 families in Kondaimpattai 

We also transferred fund to our partners to distribute relief goods as follows:

• To Kalai Pattarai for 144 families of Ekkatuthangal in Chennai
• to the WEEDS NGO for 130 widows in Tuticorn District and 120 daily-wage families in the Kannyakumari District. 

Distribution activities were accompanied by an explanation of safety measures needed to control the COVID virus, and all beneficiaries promised to wear masks, use hand sanitizers and keep their home surroundings clean.

LOOKING FORWARD

The need continues to be great, since the COVID Lockdown, though loosening, continues to deprive thousands of their regular income.    

While we continue to need support for emergency rations, we are also in need of funding for long-term economic recovery to help us provide:

• Seeds for sowing when the new agricultural season starts in August 2020 
• Organic manure and biological pest repellents 
• Goats for widows
• Tailoring jobs for women 
• Cash grants to trade enterprises in afflicted sectors

We are deeply grateful for GlobalGiving’s support, without which starvation or suicide would likely have claimed many lives and many more would have been anguished by hunger and despair.   With their help, we provided 900 families with confidence and hope, freed from fear as to where their next meal would come from.

But this is just the start of a long and difficult struggle to provide for the resource poor of Tamil Nadu and to help them start earning an income again.

With your help, we will get through this!

With gratitude for your past support, 

Janet Preethi

Links:

• Grant Completion report with all participants and pictures