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Lessons that the pandemic has taught the world:
Still, Being Social-एक नई शुरुआत organization yet has not given up the fight. Here, we are sharing what volunteers of Being Social-एक नई शुरुआत who are in the frontline are doing to fight Covid-19 and support our nation.
LEND OUR HANDS TO SENIOR CITIZENS AND WOMEN
The volunteers of Being Social-एक नई शुरुआत took special efforts to protect senior citizens and women who were alone in their houses either with babies or old parents who did not have any support. We made access to medical care, necessities, groceries and essential items to preserve and protect them.
Later, we made essential items accessible to other people who were in need across the country.
Volunteers of Being Social-एक नई शुरुआत worked tirelessly, fearlessly on the ground level by being there in the frontline throughout this tough and the most challenging time.
The volunteers helped less privileged people, children, women, along with helping people with disabilities and everyone else who needed help during these most demanding time.
They did not give up at all and educated people about the COVID protocols and its importance of implementing them in their lives too.
OUR VOLUNTEERS OUTREACHING SLUM AREAS – PROMOTION OF HAND WASHING PRACTICES
We were receiving very anxious calls from people from marginalized communities in rural and slum areas. Due to the Covid-19 pandemic, they have been hard hit economically – many of them being the sole bread earners for their families. Before providing essentials, we always made sure that things are going to the right hands. We would enquire about the authenticity of the needy people. Most importantly, while distributing, we made sure that none should question the needy person’s dignity. We would conduct hygiene awareness sessions for the people of the slum areas and educate them about the novel corona virus outbreak and various ways to prevent ourselves from becoming the prey. Being Social-एक नई शुरुआत volunteers conducted a brief session explaining people to wash their hands, wear a mask, and always be mindful of maintaining distance. After educating them about the fundamentals of hygiene, they moved ahead to help them with food products.
Distance, time, weather, temperature, hunger, thirst, day and night – nothing could come in the way of the social volunteers, their work, mood, and temperament. They had just one focus – to reach out and help as many lives as they could.
CARE FOR THE LESS PRIVILEGED AND CHILDREN OF ORPHANAGES DURING COVID-19 PANDEMIC
In the current context of lockdown and restriction of movements, children have constrained access to socialization, play, and even physical contact, critical for their psychosocial well-being and development. School closures are preventing children from access to learning and limiting their interactions with peers. We supported more than 40 orphanages across the country by providing groceries, essentials, clothes, milk, nutritional support, stationaries, sanitary napkins every month.
CARING FOR THE ELDERLY DURING COVID-19 PANDEMIC
The elderly were at a greater risk from COVID 19, and those with pre-existing problems became all the more vulnerable. This pandemic posed a more significant challenge in taking care of them, and with the on-going lockdown, it became more challenging to reach out to those who live in old age homes.
Wherever we are, we help them and reassure them that they are not alone. The coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic has brought about unprecedented fear and uncertainty, especially among older adults. We supported senior citizens of more than ten old age homes by providing them nutritious meals and diapers. We also got their health check-up done by a team of professional doctors.
We are in constant touch with them and make sure to fulfill if they have anything to wish for.
RELIEF FOR MIGRANT LABOURERS
A nationwide lockdown for 21 days was declared on March 24, 2020, and subsequently extended till May 3. Initially, the impact of lockdown was visible. The sudden national lockdown made migrant laborers jobless, without food and apprehensive about being infected.
Some of them may not have been linked to the government portals to avail free or subsidized ration or other benefits. While some may not have been linked to the public distribution system. Others may not have ration cards or any other IDs to get access to help. In some cases, the migrant workers left their ration cards with their families in their native states.
We found that these migrant laborers found it hard to reside, communicate and live for their sustenance. We provided them with breakfast, gloves, masks, water and arranged food for them. To make their travel short and convenient, we helped them fill the forms near bus stations and railway stations.
RELIEF TO FLOOD VICTIMS
Despite the dual challenges of flood and COVID-19, volunteers of Being Social-एक नई शुरुआत prepared themselves for this challenge. We reached Assam, Bihar and Hyderabad and worked on the ground level. We provided groceries, clothes and food to needy people.
BLANKET DISTRIBUTION DRIVE
Being Social-एक नई शुरुआत tried to reach the homeless, visually impaired, less economic stable people, disabled and senior citizens. We provided them woolen clothes and blankets to protect them against gruelling cold waves. This drive enabled us to help homeless people who sleep on footpaths or dingy places. We distributed to the needy people in our identified targeted areas.
DISTRIBUTION OF BACK-TO-SCHOOL STATIONERY
All children deserve quality education. However, many children from less privileged families who lack access to quality education cannot afford school supplies. During the pandemic, Being Social-एक नई शुरुआत donated school supplies to support the education of less fortunate children. While schools are not yet open, Being Social-एक नई शुरुआत helped these kids get ready for the new academic session. BASIC SCHOOL SUPPLY KIT consists of the following things: –
MENSTRUATION AWARENESS SESSIONS
Amidst the chaos, we continued our menstrual hygiene sessions for the girls.
The primary objective of the program is to raise awareness and management among adolescent girls / women on Menstrual Hygiene and encourage discussion and impart knowledge and education on this topic. This awareness program also helps to increase understanding about menstruation right from adolescence.
NUTRITIONAL CARE AND SUPPORT FOR LESS PRIVILEDGED CHILDREN
During COVID, infants and young children are much more vulnerable to malnutrition. They face risks for long-term physical and cognitive effects of malnutrition because infancy is a time of rapid brain development and physical growth.
To avoid this, we provided mid-day meals to many orphanages, child development centers to maintain and promote healthy weight, average growth, and development, prevent malnutrition and its effects on immunity and provide adequate energy and nutrients. We provided them with nutritious meals, juices, milk, fruits.
COUNSELLING SESSIONS AND COVID AWARENESS PROGRAMS
We counselled underprivileged kids, slum dwellers, and everyone we reached out to help with cleanliness, hygiene, and sanitation COVID guidelines, etc. Post lockdown the volunteers of Being Social-एक नई शुरुआत started COVID awareness programs across the country by making reusable masks and campaigning COVID awareness programs.
Lack of awareness is one of the significant drawbacks. While distributing essential food items in slums and villages, we have witnessed that people are not educated about the meaning and importance of COVID PROTOCOLS.
Total Citizen Helped during the pandemic March 2020-March 2022
| Groceries and essentials | 67,000 |
| Nutritional meals | 39,000 |
| Educational and stationery support | 5,000 |
| Sanitizer, pads and masks | 5,000 |
| Blankets | 8,000 |
| Total Citizen | 1,24,000 |
It showed us the strength of the humanity, while many of us were living in a panic, during this chaos. It reminded us of who we are. Maybe its time, the world will finally change.
Sharing is caring. Sometimes we need to realise the importance of kindness. Pandemic was an exam for the remarkable leaders who steered us through the crisis. By leaders, we mean the social workers who worked at the ground-level without worrying about the time and weather: the doctors who served the community unconditionally and the scientists who were tirelessly trying to make the vaccine. We can not forget the teachers trying their level best to make their online classes exciting and creative, and even neighbors who made sure that none should sleep hungry in their community. We need to remember that we have a gift called ‘life’ and that we should appreciate it.
TRANSFORMATION OF GOVERNMENT SCHOOL (Makeover of Sarkari School)
The transformation of Government schools, to give a better environment for children to learn and grow. We are together observing a pandemic that has turned the world upside down. Schools’ closure has protected the school children from coronavirus, but their education has been disrupted, especially for disadvantaged children. High-income schools across the country are already functioning with agility and care. They have access to internet-based learning, but what about those children who do not have computers in their schools, access to the internet, lack mobile phones, televisions and internet accessibility, and, above all, this lack of proper infrastructure.
When it comes to infrastructure, do we still need to blame COVID for this?
A large section of less privileged children is devoid of minimum required resources for their offline classes. It is not hard to count on our fingers the crucial components of an average decent school – some elements like libraries, toilets, playground, classrooms, administration, and teachers.
We believe that the infrastructure has enormous significance. According to many studies, it has been found that the physical conditions of school buildings positively affect school completion and the interest and performance of the students. There is evidence indicating teachers in schools with adequate infrastructure average 10 percent less absenteeism than teachers in schools with deficient infrastructure. Being Social-एक नई शुरुआत took this initiative to transform eight schools in Bhagalpur, Muzaffarpur and Patna. We believe that for the well-being of the school, infrastructure does matter. A school building should be made with planning and love, and not with just bricks and stone. Considering this in our minds, we decided to transform a few government schools and plan to do for some in the future under the initiative Makeover of Sarkari school.
A visually appealing landscape looks pleasant with beautiful paints and decorations to provide a soothing and calm environment for the students to concentrate better, reinforce each child’s psychological, social and educational welfare. The artistic features of a school can boost a strong sense of belongingness. We also set up a library – an essential part of every school’s learning process as it is a counterpart of the school’s infrastructure and provides another space for children to learn and create better learners.
Another essential feature of the right school is to provide safety and security to the kids. We instilled signboards and school gates.
We believe that a good school infrastructure with suitable spaces makes it the right place for the children to study. It makes it exciting and gets the children and even teachers motivated to come to school; this, in turn, improves students’ attendance and interest in learning and faculty’s attendance and interest in teaching.
We work with this ideology that government schools should emerge as role models to inspire other schools.