Covid Relief packages
On May 3, 2020, our volunteers in Birbhum packed and distributed soyabean, rice, dal, mustard oil to last at least a week, and also soap and masks, to 50 families of socioeconomically disempowered daily wagers of the Rampurhat sector. On April 26, 2020, Vivek Vani students reached relief to 155 families of daily wagers in slums along the Adi Ganga and Kadamtala (Thakurpukur) area of Kolkata, and distributed to each family a fortnight's worth of rice, dal, potatoes, cooking oil and soap. Elderly, poor Muslim women observing Ramadan received special packets containing chhola, ginger, Glucon-D, chiwra, sugar and khejur. Khadi masks stitched by Vivek Vani mothers were distributed to 70 families. On April 5, 2020, Vivek Vani Shiksha Kendra's ex-students, masked, gloved, and strictly following social distancing rules, were out at work giving 100 daily wagers’s families of the Behala-Thakurpukur sector packets
Tarpaulins were delivered and arrangements made for pre-paid mud tiles for the poorer families in East Midnapore whose roofs had been badly damaged by supercyclone Amphan. On Sunday, 8th June 2020 the team from BASICS started from Kolkata at 4 am am and reached Dhekua village at 7:30 am. Our local contacts had already done a detailed survey, sending us photographs of the most affected homes in their area. The families of the village, including one of our Vivek Vani students, were very helpful during this long day of work that that lasted 15 hours - eight hours of distribution/surveying and seven hours of travel time. The affected families assembled at 8:30 am. Large tarpaulins were distributed together with a sanitizing kit containing two large soaps and three masks per family, and dry food and essentials.
Relief for 50 families across the villages of Nawsha, Nahanna, Kolagachhia, Bunorhat, Lokkhonpur, Horidebpur and Dokkhin Kamarpole in the Sarisha area was delivered on 4th June 2020 by BASICS in collaboration with M. Baidya, a dynamic primary school teacher who has been working independently to survey and help villages in her area. Every BASICS kit contained 1 kg muri, 1 kg chire, 1 kg chhatu, mask, 2 soaps, biscuits, and a large 12x15 tarpaulin sheet for overhead cover. Many villages still have not got help from any other source. Much work needs to be done to help rebuild the lives of cyclone victims in the Sarisha belt. A reminder to all relief teams going out to do cyclone relief during the pandemic, to always include masks in their relief packs, as many villagers of the South 24 Parganas and East and West Midnapore still do not have any masks.
Relief material for 300 families was delivered by BASICS on Sunday the 31st of May 2020 to Brajaballabhpur in the Sunderbans, in collaboration with A. Acharya. Our Vivek Vani students tirelessly worked to source, weigh, pack and load the relief material onto trucks. We started at 2.30 am, and reached the material by truck upto Namkhana.The local volunteers unloaded all the heavy sacks, and our team with the help of the wonderful people from JU Commune who were on a field survey assignment, assembled the packs on the boat at the Namkhana jetty.
Relief material was delivered on 29th May 2020 morning by BASICS to 50 families of Purba Berar Chak, Kakdip in the Sunderbans. A local youth, T. Maity and his team received the material, and gave us the register of names which we had asked them to survey and collect, and which we will verify after they distribute the material.
