Today is the feast of St. Joseph the Worker and International Labour Day so let us all pray together for the people suffering and thank our workforce for their tireless dedication towards perfection, which helps maintain the Caritas India Quality. May all benefit from the dignity of work and the beauty of rest.

As the country is seeing a surge in positive cases of Coivd-19 and the Coronavirus pandemic continues to affect the population, Caritas India along with her partners has prominently made some realistic relief efforts to support as many as vulnerable people possible through effective mechanisms and processes in place focusing widely through its philosophy of 4 pillars.

Caritas India continues its focus as we enter the last week of the Phase-2 Lockdown by overseeing the critically important need for maintaining hygiene, through spreading awareness on WASH. As a concrete way forward through the lens of empowering animation Caritas India believes in WASH being a standard protocol that needs to be the basic point of action in our collective action against COVID19 at the community level.

In this effort, Caritas India has distributed 1.58 Million masks as well as 357,000 hygiene kits and sanitizers, along with the basic understanding of daily routines that communities should ensure in their daily lives as safety measures. On the other hand, Caritas India has also broadened the scope of its intervention into two new dimensions which have come up as an emerging crisis and are as equally important in our continued fight against COVID19

Initially, we saw the migrant crisis that displayed a plethora of unpleasantness in the country with stories coming in all over wherein; thousands of daily wage workers and laborers were held up in bigger Tier-1  cities which was their ray of hope for earning a livelihood and sustain themselves and their families. Due to the lockdown, it was unforeseen darkness that set upon them with no means to go home and rapidly depleting resources of food and savings which could help them survive in the shelters only if there was humbleness from their landlords. Caritas India decided to laser focus its efforts on this slew of the population which was likely been the worst affected due to the lockdown announced in the country.

Caritas India has till date reached and supported 2,86,000 migrants across the country, aiding them on their needs of food, water, hygiene supplies and especially providing all of it to those stranded in various quarantine homes or shelters across the country as a result of dialogue with District Administrations under their purview. Caritas India also has distributed 140000 dry rations while also providing cooked meals to migrants who have had no means to be able to prepare meals.  An approx. of 166000 migrants have been provided with hygiene kits and masks. Caritas India remains extremely committed to supporting this especially vulnerable section.

The lockdown also has had a detrimental impact on the mental health of the general population. Across the country, there have been incidences of increased stress and anxiety, at times manifesting through multiple news reports of an increase in domestic violence cases. In such unprecedented and uncertain times, being locked up in homes with physical inactivity and limited social interactions, psychological effects have become quite common, but equally easily ignored and left unaddressed due to lack of understanding and infrastructure for such concerns. With this thought, Caritas India, initiated the psychosocial support helpline to provide basic counselling as well as link them to professional state/center helplines wherever required. The organization along with its partners has provided psychosocial support to nearly 66,000 people to date including more than 11000 migrant workers who reached out to seek assistance telephonically. Caritas India continues to add more counsellors in partnership with various organizations to consistently increase its efforts towards providing mental health support.

Working on multiple fronts, Caritas India until now has reached out to more than 2.7 million people, helping and supporting them in these challenging times. The organization has so far spent INR 191 Million towards various relief efforts. Caritas, along with her 181 partner organizations and more than 24000 strong volunteer networks continue to tirelessly work for providing relief and the required help to the vulnerable sections in this fight against Covid-19.