Initiatives for rural India

Many grassroots organisations have taken up projects to help people in the villages devastated by the second wave

The second wave has disrupted the lives of many across the country. The last few months have seen an increasing amount of individual-driven initiatives to provide support for those in need of relief. However, most of the efforts that gain our attention have been focused on metro cities. Here are a few attempting to ease the struggles of those in rural parts of the country.

Rural Response Tracker

At the start of May, lawyers from Agami, an NGO that works to reshape systems of law and justice, started the Rural Response Tracker. “When we look at the situation in front of us, we need to understand that this is not just a healthcare crisis; it is going to be India’s biggest economic crisis with a lot of people having been pushed back to poverty,” says Sachin Malhan, co-founder of Agami.

They also saw in this situation, an opportunity to bridge the gap between urban and rural India. “We have to expand our circle of care and engagement as an urban community to make us a better society,” explains Sachin. The problems in the rural parts of our country are often at a scale that even the government is unable to penetrate. While there are many individual and organisational, on-ground initiatives, they don’t often collaborate with the local small citizen groups and platforms that understand the issues at the grassroots. “We wanted to link these initiatives with those who had the resources necessary to support their work. We want these local efforts to be elevated, and create room for collaborations so that there are more creative and effective solutions,” says Sachin. In a bid to cut the information asymmetry, the platform creates a database of vetted initiatives that offer help to rural areas or marginalised groups and communities. Those interested in providing their support can directly reach out to them. So far they have 720 initiatives across 30 states and Union Territories listed on their platform. To know more, visit ruralindia.help

Adopt a PHC

Centre for Wildlife Studies (CWS) works with communities living close to wildlife protected areas along the Western Ghat area. When the pandemic broke out, they realised that there was a need to teach adults of those communities not only ways to mitigate wildlife-human conflict, but also ways the various zoonotic diseases such as Nipah and Zika work. So they started the Wild Surakshe programme. “There are many such viruses that start from animals. Those in urban areas would be made aware of them through news and other mediums, but the communication system in rural India is broken,” explains Sumit Arora, associate director. These workshops would help these communities to not only work towards preventing contracting these viruses but also in identifying them, which makes responding easier. Started in September 2020, the team conducted workshops with people from 400 villages until they stopped due to the lockdown.

At the moment, the team is focused on their ‘Adopt a PHC programme. When the second wave broke out, they contacted the network of doctors and nurses in the areas that they had created during their workshops. They found that the primary health centres in those areas were struggling with an acute shortage of basic supplies. “We identified and located 250 PHCs across Karnataka and Goa, which in itself was not easy. We have our field members there are our points of contact. We raised funds and sent supplies to 40 centres so far,” he says. To know more, visit www.cwsindia.org

Farmer livelihood

Vanasiri Rural Development Society (VRDS) has collaborated with Bengaluru-based Rang De and Pranchee Foundation, a small microfinance institute that provides women entrepreneurs in south Karnataka with the initial capital, to work towards vaccinating those in the 18 and above age groups.

With labourers, small and marginal farmers losing their livelihood, VRDS has also started a labour bank, through which they aim to provide 100 days of additional labour work over and above the work they get under MGNREGA. The labour bank is an independent entity run by the labourers through a labour union and works towards organising the unorganised labourers by enrolling them as members of the labour bank. They also aim to help small and marginal farmers who have no access to tractors and other mechanised agri-equipments by renting them out at no cost.

To know more: @vrdsrnr on Facebook

First aid centre

With most PHCs overwhelmed with the number of patients, many in rural parts of the country are fighting a battle with the lack of medical facilities. Realising that the most effective tool to combat the situation is to diagnose and treat patients early, Dr Anil Kumar formed teams of young volunteers in Bagepalli and Gudibande Taluks who carried out daily checks for at-risk persons, the aged, and people with comorbidities. They were able to cover about 400 villages in south Karnataka last year.

With the second wave in motion, he hopes to set up a Rural Covid First Aid Centre at each village in the Chikkaballapur district and aims to procure medicines to distribute kits to each centre. So far, 150 such centres have been set up, and they have been able to treat 1,500 people till now. Apart from check-ups, they will also conduct awareness programmes, says Shambavi R, programme manager.

For details, look for the Support Covid Treatment in rural areas campaign on www.righttolive.org

Streamlining logistics

Bengaluru-based Rishabh Lalani started raising money for non-profits last year. He was able to raise Rs 23 crores for various initiatives. As the second wave began to roll out, he realised that it was only a matter of time before the virus reached rural parts of the country. “But, was rural India prepared for this? There are places where there are no Covid Care Centres, or the ones that exist are not functional,” says Rishabh. The Covid Rural Response Initiative is a group of volunteers that have come together to streamline procurement and logistics for various needs, such as procuring oxymeters and concentrators or even raising funds for sex works and devadasis in Karnataka. “We identify the need and coordinate with the authorities to bridge the gap between their needs and the available resources,” he says.

To know more: @CovidRural on Twitter.