MUMBAI: Ronnie & Zarina Screwvala founded Swades Foundation commits big in the fight against COVID-19. Many prominent corporate and individuals have come forward and partnered with the foundation and contributed to its ‘Swades COVID-19 Relief & Recovery Fund’. The special Relief Fund is setup by the Screwvala’s to cater not just the immediate relief but also recovery of those economically impacted by the pandemic in the rural areas.
The Swades Foundation is active in large areas of rural Maharashtra for the last 2 decades and in the last 3 weeks has actioned immediate relief operations – 15 mobile ventilators have been handed over to the district administration in Raigad & Nashik and another 15 ventilators are being shipped to 3 jumbo centers in Mumbai. Further in coming weeks, Jumbo cylinders, Oxygen concentrators, Ambulances and other medical equipment’s to support doctors and health care workers in rural areas will be donated to hospitals and COVID care centers across Raigad and Nashik. The foundation is also providing meals to homeless and migrant worked in Mumbai – it has begun with a commitment of 30,000 meals and will scale up based on the need.
The foundation also continues to support livelihood in their villages so that there is no long term economic disruption to the community they work with & have been actively tackling Reverse Migration that peaked since April 2020.
“In these unprecedented times, we salute those who have been working tirelessly. This fund that we have setup not just caters to the immediate relief but also with a long term vision to minimize the economic impact the pandemic has on the rural households which is currently more impacted in this second wave of the pandemic. We are receiving requests from other districts like Sangli & Kolhapur and require about INR 15 – 20 Cr to cater to all the needs. We are very grateful to our partners and donors who have supported us thus far and look forward to more corporate to join us in this mission to fight COVID-19” added Ronnie Screwvala.
