Dear Supporters
Thank you for your support. Here is our report of progress made and challenges in week 3 of our relief, since repurposing Safe in India and Manzil.
"हम तो घर जाने की तैयारी में बैठे हैं, लॉक डाउन खत्म हो और हम निकलें".... सुनील, 22 वर्ष, खो गाँव.
It appears to us that a large part of the migrant populations we are supporting are waiting for the lock down to finish to leave for their villages. If they are not supported soon and well enough, we may lose another large chunk of working population for a long time to our industry and businesses when they reopen.
"आज आप राशन दिये हैं तो तीन दिन बाद चूल्हा जला है"....रंजना, नाहरपुर गाँव1. Increased dry rations for family for 10 day needs in unreached areas: Another 18,000 daily rations (Adult units) distributed during the week. We are now focussing on dry rations as it provides these people food security for next 10-20 days and the dignity (and hopefully some joy) of cooking at their own homes as they wish.
"दो-दो घंटे खाने की लाइन में लगे रहना पड़ता है, धूप में चक्कर आने लगता है. कई बार तो बारी आने तक खाना खत्म भी हो जाता है"....सुधीर,32 वर्ष,कासन गाँव.2. Stopped cooked meals and bananas: The local Sarpanches have been funded by the government to serve cooked meals so we have decided to stop this. We did serve 3,500 Vegetable Pulao lunches to supplement government provided Rice, Daal, etc, for a week before
this change.
3. New Tie-up with local Administration: We have now agreed with them to provides daily rations to additional 1,000 families (average 2,000 adults and 2,000 children) in ear-marked needy population. This will double our activity in the next week to feeding about 4,000 adults and 4,000 children everyday.
4. New partnership with Gurugram Nagrik Ekta Manch (GNEM): GNEM has been doing great work for the needy in and around Gurgaon city. We have now tied up with them to provide rations to some of the Manesar villages together, avoiding duplication and increasing economies of scale. With increasing awareness of food distress in Manesar from our research on unpaid wages, there are now a few more NGOs operating in the area, which is great to see.
5. New warehouse in Manesar: With increase in volumes, we needed one in Manesar and is now provided by a supporter, to store and distribute rations.
6. Continued ESIC push to use their immense resource for at least the 4 crore formal-sector workers and their families: After our updated second set of recommendations to ESIC last week, we also published our opinion piece to increase awareness of the opportunity here.
7. 37% contract workers still not been paid/paid fully for March: We completed a second round of interviews of c.50 workers registered with ESIC on 11th to 13th March and found that 37% (75% until 7th Apr) of them had not been paid yet, despite government's guidelines to do so. We would continue escalating this issue as either the employers or the government needs to provide cash to them asap.
We will continue developing our assistance to now 2,000+ under-served migrant families (c.8000 adults and children) and change our service proposition as needs evolve and the government agencies increase the quantity and quality of their activity in Manesar.
Thank you for your support. Keep safe and spread the word! team@safeinindia.org
DONATION AT (One family’s one month ration costs c.Rs2,100):
Indian passport-holders paying from their Rupee accounts/cards: www.safeinindia.org/donate
Foreign passport holders, foreign currency payers: https://manzil.funraise.org/