JOIN USCoronavirus lockdown: Bikers bring comfort food to graveyard workers in Bengaluru
Every morning, a team of young volunteers on their bikes carry cooked food to a section of people -- who the society sometimes just don’t see -- the graveyard workers.
Called the Covid Biker Relief Squad, the volunteers have, in these turbulent times, built a rapport with the workers, who are more often avoided, and are bringing their daily meal much to their relief.
The Squad gathers at St Joseph’s College, Shanthi Nagar in the morning, segregates, packs and distributes groceries and cooked food to the needy in the city.
“In the last week of March, our professors wanted to know if we wanted to volunteer,” recollects Rohit Rajiv, who is a part of the Covid Biker Relief Squad, and who has done his Masters in Social Work from St Joseph’s College, Shanthi Nagar.
“We didn’t know what the volunteering was for. A group of my friends and I decided to go to our college to find out. There, we saw packaging and segregation of groceries and cooked food happening. This was basically for blue-tent workers with funding from different NGOs,” he says.
“Apart from the six of us, there were other volunteers too. We started helping out in segregating rice, dal etcetera and making food kits,’’ he adds.
Although they started with this, using their social work experience, they decided to go mainstream and help those whose voices get buried.
“So we started catering to graveyard workers, for whom help doesn’t reach easily, along with the daily wage earners. There are many graveyards on Bannerghatta Road,’’ he says.
“People tend to avoid them. But once you go into the graveyard, you see there are people living there. Four to five families stay inside a graveyard. We have worked with graveyard workers before, so there is no problem communicating with them. Every day, they wait for us to come,” he says.
The children rush to them as soon as their bikes arrive, greeting them with a ‘How are you, Anna?’.
In the afternoons, the team is busy sending out grocery kits, which come from different organisations to other needy people.
The squad takes necessary precautions themselves before delivering the grocery and cooked food kits on their bikes to people. “We have people calling us up during emergencies, especially when they are stuck. We verify these calls and then deliver the kits,” says Rohit.
The team is called by different organisations for distribution, packing, loading or unloading of groceries.
“We have also linked ourselves to the police stations. So if someone is in need of food, they can either contact the organisations or the police station close to their place. They, in turn, will alert us,” he says. “We keep moving around the city and helping,” adds Rohit as he prepares for another day of service at the graveyard.