Camping out for relief
A Jaipur-based educational organisation lends a hand to the struggling administration in its fight against Covid-19 in the remote villages of Alwar, writes Anjuli Bhargava
Yuddha chhid gaya hai (A war has been waged), Pakistan ne hamla kar diya hai (Pakistan has attacked us), mahamari ya haiza phail gaya hai (a massive plague or cholera has spread) — these were some of the rumors doing the rounds in remote Umren and Thanagazi villages of Rajasthan’s Alwar district as policeman used every trick to force villagers to stay indoors when the lockdown was first announced in March. Schools were already shut by early March.
Within days of the Covid-19 outbreak in India, it became quite apparent to the district administration how unprepared the local residents were for the calamity. The villagers — many unlettered — were blissfully ignorant of the coronavirus and its dangers. Literacy rate in the district is well below the national average with female literacy trailing further behind.
Washing hands, wearing masks and social distancing were far from their minds as they stayed indoors convinced something was on, but couldn’t fathom it. The authorities worried that if a case came up, the villages would be decimated just on account of poor understanding of the problem.
That’s when Jaipur-based Bodh Shikshasamiti (BSS) — being funded by Goodearth Education Foundation for the last 20 years — decided to tie up with the local administration to spread awareness about the pandemic in the villages. To start with, around 25-30 teachers of BSS — which runs 31 schools (with close to 9,000-10,000 students) in the educationally backward districts of Rajasthan — started working on a voluntary basis, visiting these villages, disseminating information about the virus and distributing masks among the villagers. Regular announcements regarding safety and precautions were made through loudspeakers at the main points of the villages and pamphlets were distributed. Besides, the owners of local grocery shops — hubs of information dissemination — were sensitised.
The mammoth effort paid off. Thankfully, by the time, the first infected case surfaced in the community in early April — a vegetable farmer who had transported his produce to Gurugram in Haryana — most were aware of what they were confronting. This ensured that the virus did not spread like wildfire — something the authorities had been dreading.
But as weeks flew by, other gaps were found. Based on reports from volunteers, the Samiti management found that the most urgent need – even before the information – was of food. “Incomes of many had totally dried up and we found they were struggling to arrange even two meals a day,” said Yogendra Upadhyay, executive director of BSS. Then they started distributing food packets twice a day among over 500 families in Jamwa, Ramgarh and Amer areas. In the last 60 days or so, 27,000 packets have been distributed and the effort remains ongoing.
Soon further gaps were noticed. As the government allowed work under Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act in safe zones, it was noticed that workers were not maintaining social distance. Villagers who were suffering from any ailment suffered silently at homes as they were scared of venturing out and being beaten up by police. That’s when the BSS team decided that a local helpline number was needed for assisting villagers with health-related problems.
But the teachers woke up to another serious fallout. Children were falling massively behind in their studies and growing increasingly restless at home with nothing to do. Online classes were not an option as few families had even smartphones, forget about computers. The BSS teachers then started conducting daily home visits, taking study material across and putting in place a few protocols. Each teacher started visiting one cluster of villages to take classes of the older children, while they in turn were asked to pitch in for the younger ones in their respective neighbourhood, wherever possible.
What has been heartening for the BSS management team is that the teachers felt more energised with time. For the last several weeks, around 50-60 teachers have started residing in temporary camps set up in the schools for better coordination. Even the women teachers (of a total of 160 BSS teachers, 20 per cent is female) have now started to reside in the schools for the relief effort, leaving their husbands, inlaws and children behind at home — something usually unheard of in these parts.