While many people across the country have been inside their homes to protect their health and that of their loved ones, NGOs have stepped up to support the poorest of poor who are struggling for mere survival. Prayatna Foundation’s team of warriors has been on Delhi NCR’s streets fighting against the odds and risking their own lives to provide food, rations, and medical supplies to daily wage workers, migrants, specially-abled people transgenders, and other marginalized communities.
Prayatna is an NGO based out of Noida founded in 2016 by an ex-civil servant and UN employee, Pratik Kumar, with a vision to foster a world where the people and planet coexist in perfect harmony for lasting well-being and prosperity. Covid-19 has rocked the very foundation of our society spreading death and deprivation all around. In these dire times, the foundation came forward to provide dry ration, cooked meals, hygiene kits, and Covid Home Care kits to severely affected families in slums and temporary shanties in East Delhi and Noida areas, helping more than 2000 families so far.
Prayatna has been continuously providing nutritional support in the communities by distributing dry ration kits that are good enough for a family of five persons to last a week weighing about 15 kgs each. About 30 tons of dry rations have been distributed amongst 2000 families and more are in the pipeline. Prayatna is also distributing hygiene kits so that people can maintain proper hygiene habits which are the need of the hour. In addition, Prayatna has been distributing cooked meals to more than a 1000 people daily.
Careful community engagement helps identify disadvantaged patients who are unable to go to a hospital or those in need of home care. Such patients are provided Covid Home Care kits comprising a thermometer, pulse oximeter, basic medicines, hand sanitizer, N-95 masks, gloves, face shield, PPE kit, and waste bags. These kits help the patients monitor their health so they can get to know when to approach the hospital rather than rushing to the hospital even when it is not required which makes the overall situation even worse.