<p>In this episode, two volunteers engaged in Covid-19 relief work--from helping people get oxygen cylinders to assisting them to give respectable last rites to the dead--share their experiences. </p>.<p><strong>Excerpts:</strong></p>.<p>Ahmed Shariff: Welcome to DH Radio Tousif</p>.<p>Tousif: Yeah</p>.<p>Ahmed: My first question to you is: Tell us something about your organisation and what you do?</p>.<p>Tousif: When we say Mercy Mission, it is a coalition of 30 different NGOs, who have come together under this banner called Mercy Mission and we are working towards the relief effort in this Covid crisis.</p>.<p>Ahmed: What sort of relief measures do you do? Could you tell us more about that?</p>.<p>Tousif: Yeah. One thing is that when this Covid-19 crisis started and before even the lockdown was announced, before that only by seeing this pandemic effort in other countries and even few cases had been reported in Kerala. In the first week of March itself, we started having few meetings and we decided that we need to have a coordinated effort wherein all teams who are working on the ground should get together and do something as a cohesive unit. Then in Mercy Mission, we have multiple verticles. When the lockdown was announced, initially we started with food distribution, ration distribution then we have a verticle called Mercy awareness, wherein we did awareness programmes, We had Mercy clinics, wherein, initially in March first week and April, we did field camps in slums to distribute free medicines etc. then the migrant workers' migration started and then we collaborated with authorities from Labour department and Railways etc. And we supported all the Shramik Trains. We were providing them with food, water and biscuits etc. We did this is many stations like Malur, Chikbanavar, Yashwantpur, Bangalore city railway station, Cantonment station. We did it because that was the need of that time. The lockdown had started and in Bangalore, the health crisis was not as much... There were only a handful of cases which were easily manageable in Victoria and Boring Hospitals, basically only these two hospitals were admitting Covid-19 patients. that time there were cases only in between 50 and 100 and it was easily manageable by these hospitals. At that time, many didn't have work. All the migrant labourers and daily wage earners didn't have money to cover even their basic needs. At that time our main focus was cooked-food distribution and ration kits. In fact, at that time we were running 36 community kitchens across Bangalore...</p>
<p>In this episode, two volunteers engaged in Covid-19 relief work--from helping people get oxygen cylinders to assisting them to give respectable last rites to the dead--share their experiences. </p>.<p><strong>Excerpts:</strong></p>.<p>Ahmed Shariff: Welcome to DH Radio Tousif</p>.<p>Tousif: Yeah</p>.<p>Ahmed: My first question to you is: Tell us something about your organisation and what you do?</p>.<p>Tousif: When we say Mercy Mission, it is a coalition of 30 different NGOs, who have come together under this banner called Mercy Mission and we are working towards the relief effort in this Covid crisis.</p>.<p>Ahmed: What sort of relief measures do you do? Could you tell us more about that?</p>.<p>Tousif: Yeah. One thing is that when this Covid-19 crisis started and before even the lockdown was announced, before that only by seeing this pandemic effort in other countries and even few cases had been reported in Kerala. In the first week of March itself, we started having few meetings and we decided that we need to have a coordinated effort wherein all teams who are working on the ground should get together and do something as a cohesive unit. Then in Mercy Mission, we have multiple verticles. When the lockdown was announced, initially we started with food distribution, ration distribution then we have a verticle called Mercy awareness, wherein we did awareness programmes, We had Mercy clinics, wherein, initially in March first week and April, we did field camps in slums to distribute free medicines etc. then the migrant workers' migration started and then we collaborated with authorities from Labour department and Railways etc. And we supported all the Shramik Trains. We were providing them with food, water and biscuits etc. We did this is many stations like Malur, Chikbanavar, Yashwantpur, Bangalore city railway station, Cantonment station. We did it because that was the need of that time. The lockdown had started and in Bangalore, the health crisis was not as much... There were only a handful of cases which were easily manageable in Victoria and Boring Hospitals, basically only these two hospitals were admitting Covid-19 patients. that time there were cases only in between 50 and 100 and it was easily manageable by these hospitals. At that time, many didn't have work. All the migrant labourers and daily wage earners didn't have money to cover even their basic needs. At that time our main focus was cooked-food distribution and ration kits. In fact, at that time we were running 36 community kitchens across Bangalore...</p>
