Supporting children and providing for communities: ILP’s COVID 19 response
As you all are aware of, our World is going through a once in a generation crisis; namely the COVID 19 pandemic. For a lot of us the past few months have been a significant departure from the lives we once lived. For the already weak and downtrodden members of our society, the impact has been more painful and today is more threatening than yesterday.
Country wide lockdowns led to loss of employment for countless migrant workers. Furthermore, mass exoduses from urban agglomerations have jeopardized the schooling of their children. This presents an unprecedented challenge to civic organizations as they face a setback to years of progress, and expect an increase in dropout rates, child labour and other related issues.
ILP is relentless in playing its part to serve and support the community through this crisis. We have been in touch with our partner organizations to spread awareness about the situation, and the importance and need for social distancing, masking and hand washing.
We supported around 2000 brick kiln migrant families in Tiruvallur district by providing them with grocery kits. There are 2087 in these 2000 families and the kits provide sufficient ration for these families to rely on for 1-2 weeks.
We are also staying steadfast to our primary objective of “learning” and are working on providing quality digital educational content. The Karnataka state government has requested its teachers to use our study material to support their children in these difficult teams. We have made available content for all subjects for classes 5 through 8, and more than 500 teachers have downloaded our content so far.
We are supporting children and parents with hands-on science education
experiments which can be performed with household items.
We are publishing one experiment per day including topics such as heat transfer and optics.
( Snapshot from an experiment on heat transfer)
ILP is working with multiple NGO partners in 7 states to take up supply for food grains, masks, medicines and other forms of critical aid to the vulnerable groups. We are also partnering with our contacts in other NGOs and governmental organizations to provide safe passage for stranded migrant workers. Special attention is also provided to quarantine centers in rural areas which cater to the returning migrants.
(Sample distributed ration kit) (Loading grocery vans for distribution)
Most of our collaborators are working in helping anganwadi teachers with distribution of take home rations and helping Asha workers in checking the health of infants and babies. In Jharkhand the teams are also helping with providing books and study material to students.
In this unprecedented situation we are presented with dynamic challenges, which require creative and robust solutions. We are optimistic and hope that with the help of our donors and partners we can pull through and alleviate some of the suffering from the communities we all have pledged to help.
Further Links:
- Link to our online educational content: https://www.ilpnet.org/daily-science-experiments/
- Tableau of relief support by ILP and partners: https://public.tableau.com/profile/indialiteracyproject#!/vizhome/ILPCovidRelief/Summary