COVID Relief Support To Migrant Workers & Survivors Of Sexual Violence

Jan Sahas has been actively involved in the emergency relief work for the vulnerable caught in the second wave of Covid since April, via direct distribution of dry ration, safe transportation facilities, direct cash transfers and preventive healthcare.We identified 12 states to provide relief support to 41,000 families of migrant labourers, women-headed households, primarily, women who are pregnant or have small children, survivors of forced labour and sexual violence, manual scavengers, landless families in addition to those in immediate distress already reaching out to us over our Mazdoor (migrant worker) & women helpline till 15th July 2021.Our primary aid includes support in the form of food/ ration provisions, safe transportation facilities, direct cash transfers to meet basic needs, preventive healthcare; in addition to community prevention activity at village and ward level.Distribution of relief supportRation and preventive healthcare: We have initiated the distribution of ration, safety kits and made necessary cash transfers in the selected states, catering to 15,228 households (76,140 individuals) of the total 50K households targeted for the relief support till end of June. These households include migrant workers stranded in cities without any work, migrant workers who have returned to their source districts but because of absence of work are unable to support their families, victims of fire in cities, women headed households, survivors of sexual violence and forced labour, manual scavengers and families in distress due to COVID.Ration support includes essential food items required for daily consumption, and preventive healthcare provisions that include sanitizers and masks. The distribution has been undertaken with relevant permissions from District Magistrate, local authorities, members of the Municipal Corporation, Nagar Nigam and Panchayati Raj to support the targeted communities. Supply of Personal Protective Kit to field workers: This is primarily to protect our field workers involved in the core process of distribution and interacting with the communities, to carry out work relief work with relevant safety norms under the government guidelines. Thus far, we have safeguarded 5007 field workers in 12 states through provision of PPE kits. Our logistical and data tracking support is derived through Survey CTO, which helps us track real-time data, ensuring transparency and accuracy of the distribution on the field. This data is administered internally through dedicated resources. The data captured for each household includes attributes like the name and address of the families, number of members in the family, category of vulnerability, and their contact numbers that is required for the further verification conducted by selective team members ensuring confidentiality of information of the beneficiaries.Other ActivitiesCommunity prevention programs at the village and ward level, conducted primarily through the promotion of helplines and awareness building on preventive healthcare. We are taking steps at reaching 75 districts in 11 states through awareness generation to:Identify specific and relevant needs of labourers and survivorsSpread awareness and promote various COVID-19 specific social security schemes launched by state and central governmentsCover cases of forced labour and sexual violence considering such cases range higher under lockdown, increasing vulnerabilityCover cases of non-payment of wages, as 65% of labourers have not migrated from source to destination due to ongoing COVID-19 situation since 1 and a half years, 35% workers who have migrated will be forced to work underpaid or with no paymentSupport on Mental HealthGiven the distress witnessed within communities and teams during the pandemic, we provided mental health counselling to 3827 beneficiary communities (migrant labourers and survivors of violence), field workers, staff at Jan Sahas. This is undertaken through stress management workshops, individual sessions, workshops and awareness using posters, infographics and videos; via a team of 12 qualified counsellors having experience in applied psychology or social work in mental health, along with 33 barefoot counsellors who are trained to provide immediate psychosocial support.Sanjeevani: A Vaccination DriveJan Sahas has started a public campaign in collaboration with the Federal Bank across 200 villages in the Indore district of Madhya Pradesh. The campaign is focused on:Mass awareness drives in Indore district by the Sanjeevani van to spread awareness to 0.5 million people.Increasing awareness and acceptance of Covid-19 vaccination through 20,000 household visits.Facilitation of registration and vaccination drivesGiven the current situation, we have provided mass awareness to 72,133 people in 65 villages of Indore district and we have also sensitized 2621 households for COVID appropriate behaviour with the support of 102 AWWs, ANMs, and other PRI members. This is undertaken through advocacy, communication and social mobilization with the help of Sanjeevani Van, posters, and infographics; via a team of 8 field coordinators along with 4 block coordinators and 1 project coordinator.To ensure that we reach our target of 50K households and continue to work towards impacting those who have been affected by the pandemic, please do support and share this campaign widely.