India’s surge in COVID cases began by March-end and reached a peak of around 0.4 million daily cases around May 8. Amidst this outbreak of COVID second wave, various young individuals took up the responsibility to help people independently. Be it arranging oxygen leads for COVID patients or serving food to the underprivileged; these volunteers worked tirelessly.
By Pushpita Dey
From the onset of the COVID outbreak, people have stayed indoors. But a few individuals chose to risk their lives with the sole aim of helping people. While bodies like Khalsa Help International, Red Volunteers, etc., have been helping people, many independent volunteers did their best to support COVID-affected families amidst the second wave outbreak.
Dentists turned Saviour for many in Noida, Uttar Pradesh.
When Avriti Kulshreshtha and her entire family got affected by COVID, the main challenge was arranging food. Dr Pooja Dhingra, a dentist by profession, then delivered home-cooked food to Avriti’s family for nearly ten days. “Without her home-cooked food, I don’t feel we would have recovered so fast. During those days, good food was essential,” said Avriti.
Many such families in Noida and many underprivileged children knew that they never needed to bother about their meals as Pooja would be always there.
Inspired by her mother, Pooja said, “ My mother, despite having a weak vision, cooked food for COVID affected relatives and family friends and sent it across. I thought, If she could do, why can’t I?”
During the second wave, she cooked and served food daily, free of cost, to COVID affected families and all the underprivileged children of various sectors of Noida herself. She often visited the older adults to deliver the medicines.
Mihika is the respite for many Delhites
The family members of Rajeev Kumar Yaksh (61 years) were feeling helpless when his fever was not going down, and even other family members tested COVID positive. The tension arose when his test reports came on April 12, 2021, and “The reports were scary”, mentioned his daughter, Shruti Yaksh.
While his oxygen level was falling drastically, Shruti reached out to the “Covid Free India” Instagram page for help. Immediately, Mihika Wakhloo, the admin of COVID Free India arranged the oxygen leads for them, and they got some time to get the bed.
Shruti added, “Mihika helped us get the real-time updates of the available leads, and it was really helpful.”
Mihika Wakhloo, 26 years, a professional working in the development sector added, “The problem arises due to lack of organised practices. There were so many scams, and incorrect contact details were being circulated. So I started with verifying the leads.” Be it serving food to COVID affected older adults or arranging the medical facilities for the non-COVID elderly, she became the respite for many Delhites.
An IITian, with a Bengal volunteer, saved lives
A PhD scholar of Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Mumbai and painter by passion, Sayantan Biswas (29) from Mumbai, capital of the western state of Maharashtra, previously donated his earnings (from his paintings) to various COVID relief projects. In April, he started a crowdfunding campaign and donated much of his savings to arrange oxygen concentrators and sent them to West Bengal.
On the other hand, Sanjoy Das, an auditor by profession in Ashok Nagar, West Bengal, was the support for every individual in need. The duo tried to reach out to various people to help them get oxygen leads in various areas of South 24 Parganas, West Bengal.
“Sanjoy Das delivered the oxygen concentrator to our home the very next day; we asked for it,” mentioned Binay Saha, whose wife was in dire need of an oxygen concentrator after she tested COVID positive. Be it arranging food for the older people affected by COVID or the underprivileged families or arranging medicines or taking COVID or non-COVID patients to the hospitals, Sanjoy Das was the hope of residents in various pockets in West Bengal.
“We’ve seen that even family members refused to attend COVID affected people. Even an older adult has been left unattended for days as a COVID patient. We decided, it is high time, we should get on the ground to help these people out,” added Sanjoy Das.
Bangalore Covid challengers
The trio from Bangalore, capital of southern state of Karnataka, Saifulla Khan, Tazeen Siwani and Arshiya Tabassum worked relentlessly to help people.
Arshiya arranged and delivered daily rations for many underprivileged families, and Tazeen arranged oxygen regulators for patients.
Noor Jahan, the wife of a daily wage worker, mentioned, “Arshiya provides us food and ration since the COVID outbreak happened. We are blessed to have her support.” Arshiya even provided free education to children from underprivileged families and also gave them cash from her salary.
Recalling his terrifying experiences, Saifulla mentioned, “I lost one of my childhood friends due to COVID. She couldn’t get a hospital bed and oxygen cylinders. Since then, I decided, I will try my best to arrange beds and deliver oxygen cylinders, concentrators, regulators and medicines for as many patients as I can.”
A marketing manager by profession, Saifulla even travelled 14 Km to deliver medicines to COVID affected families. He arranged free ambulance to take dead bodies from hospitals to graveyards.
Those working remotely
While many volunteers were working actively on-ground to help people, volunteers like 25-year-old Katyayani Singh, Operations Analyst in Cision and Sajida Siddiqui, 26 years, software developer from Lucknow worked remotely to help people. They identified various misleading information related to leads available online. Thus, they sat all day to verify these leads and keep a real-time update to connect the patients with the correct source.
Be it working remotely or working on-ground, these volunteers became the ray of hope for many COVID affected families across India.
(Note: The images in the story have been taken from the Facebook post of Sanjoy Das.)
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