Don't let a daily wager go hungry in these Covid-hit times

Head Held High is a pan-India organization – we are active in more than 65 locations across 19 states where we run youth empowerment and rural employment initiatives.

 In many of these communities, people have been severely impacted by the lockdown. Their means of livelihood has been completely shuttered; or the breadwinners in their families are stranded in a distant city, unable to return or send any money home. Government assistance is not adequate at this point to prop up all the families who have been affected by this crisis. 

 In the last few weeks, we have had many heartwrenching stories pouring in from these places, giving us a sense for the magnitude of this impact. 

For example, there is Rashmi in Lucknow - a young woman who was enrolled in our training program and hopeful of a different kind of future before everything changed. Her father had passed away a year earlier. She and her mother sold flowers outside temples in order to make a living. This activity, of course, had to be stopped in the wake of the lockdown. Every day then became a struggle for survival for the family. And as they used up their limited food supplies, they had to go hungry on most days. We heard about Rashmi's situation through our trainer at that location and were able to step in and give them a month's supply of food staples. 

We have started distributing dry ration kits in many rural and urban communities to help families in need survive this difficult period of scarcity and shutdown:

 The food kits will include the following:

 5 kg of rice

5 kg of atta

1 kg of dal

1 kg of oil

The cost is Rs 600 per kit. 

 Area Covered: Bihar, Jharkhand, Maharashtra, Karnataka, Uttar Pradesh, Telangana, Madhya Pradesh, Odisha, Chhattisgarh, Himachal, Delhi, Uttarakhand, West Bengal, Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Gujarat, Harayana, Nagaland, Rajasthan

 Beneficiaries to be impacted: 15,000 families

Disbursement: 6+ weeks; as long as needed

1. To keep daily wage earners in remote parts of India from going hungry during this lockdown period and beyond;
2. To lessen the harsh impact of the lockdown on these fragile and often neglected communities.