COVID Response & Rehabilitation of communities

·       The stigma on COVID is increasing even in the rural areas due to lack of awareness

·       There has been a large influx of returning migrants into the villages where we work. They had to leave their sites of work without being paid their due wages. A majority walked back for 5-6 days or even more to reach their villages with no food or water. We estimate that these families have already experienced wage losses of upto 4000-10,000 rupees per person. 

·       Most people in the village level are without any work or source of income and could be engaged in a productive labour at the village level.

·       The migrants after facing all odds and returning to the villages have no work or source of income in the village

·       Mental issues and depression among the migrants is increasing and needs to be addressed on priority

·       Awareness on COVID and prevention is very poor in these rural communities

Our community health facilitators are leading the COVID response through the 4E approach.

•       Ensuring safety, dignity and food security to ultra-poor families severely affected by the COVID Lockdown

•       Enabling continued access to the various Government schemes like MNEREGA, Jandhan etc and government’s maternal and general healthcare systems

•       Expanding the range of healthcare to mental health, personal resilience and well-being for the most marginal, Lockdown-effected communities

•       Establishing livelihood channels for ultra-poor families

The 3 main pillars of this program would be:

I)               Awareness creation:

Healing Fields through their trained CHFs in each village reach out to the community and create awareness on COVID-19 prevention, identification of symptoms and referral to local hospital. In March, we partnered with Graam Vani’s IVR-enabled Mobile Vaani to ensure that our CHEs could use this digital platform to amplify information on across the selected districts in UP. Each CHF reaches out to atleast 250 families with awareness creation and referrals. 

II)             Policy Advocacy

The policy advocacy will be done at the village level by the CHFs and at district and State level by the Healing Fields team to ensure access to entitlements to the poor and migrant families. Each CHF will identify the families that need support to access the Government entitlements and with the support of Healing Fields by creating linkages with district administration will address these issues.

III)             Rehabilitation by expanding care to mental Health and well being

Mental health issues among the migrants is the next big challenge facing us.Our team has partnered with Lets Talk Mental Health Helpline. This helpline is being given to migrants, their families and everyone in the village. They can call and get counseling support on this number. The CHFs also regularly visit the returned migrants in the quarantine centers and homes to follow up, assess their well-being and provide them counseling and support.

1. Awareness creating to 300,000 families in 1200 villages
2. Create access to entitlements like PDS, Jandhan, PMKY to atleast 10,000 families
3. Follow up and counselling support to atleast 5000 returned migrants in the villages