Last few months we have seen hundreds of migrants walking back to their homes to reach the villages as the livelihood options in the cities were closed due to COVID19 lockdown. Most of them left but some have nowhere to go but wait and struggle for their lives.

Rashmi Vishwakarma, 33, from Mhasala village in Nagpur district shares the same fate as many others stranded in this pandemic. Staying in a nuclear family with her husband and the family was managing their lives. Her husband Bleram Bal Bahaur used to work in a small textile shop at Nagpur and Rashmi as a domestic help to educate their children Anuruth, 12, and Janvi, 10, studying in Class 8th and 5th respectively. 

The lockdown has closed their livelihood as Rashmi and Bleram lost their jobs. The couple managed the house for a few days but sooner the rations in the house started depleting. They were worried about how the family could survive in the days ahead and educate their children and their future. Rashmi narrated her story and shared that she spent many sleepless nights.

Thus, this case speaks of the problems of the poor especially those looking for livelihood opportunities, future challenges and their need during the lockdown due to COVID -19 pandemic. 

Caritas India distributed Food and Hygiene kits in association with HCL Foundation in different locations of Nagpur. The distribution was done for 800 vulnerable families of migrant workers/ informal sector workers, construction migrant workers, daily wage labourers living in slums areas prioritizing senior citizens, single mothers, transgender group and other vulnerable groups. 

“We have collected the details of most deserving families in Nagpur through our assessment based on their location, source of livelihood and socioeconomic status affected by COVID. These families exhausted their earnings in the lockdown and could not avail support from Government due to lack of documents. The food and hygiene kit support will help them to sustain for at least one and half month comfortably,” shared Mukund Deshmukh, Assistant Program Manager of Caritas India responsible for Nagpur relief distribution.

The volunteers and staff of Nagpur Social Service Society, a partner of Caritas India went for door to door assessment process to gather the information and selected the deserving families based on the given criteria. 

Rashmi took a deep breath when she received the support of food and hygiene kit of her family. This solidarity response was lifesaving support for her family and many others who received this aid from Caritas India and HCL Foundation. Both these organisations are working in Jaipur, Pune, Vijayawada, Hyderabad and Nagpur to support the slum dwellers, marginal communities and migrant workers with food and hygiene kits who are falling outside the purview of public provisioning systems in the states.