Coronavirus: What you can do to help

Coronavirus: What you can do to help

Volunteer.

Whether you are healthy or not. Whether you are a student or a working professional or a business person. Whether you are a man or a woman with two kids to take care of. There is something that each one of us can help with. Because there is much to be done. 

Starting today, 32 of us will be working closely with the staff of the Navi Mumbai Municipal Corporation (NMMC). You can do the same, with the local government in the place where you live.

What will be doing for them? Several things, starting with these.

• Today, a few of us will be working alongside NMMC officials to conduct a door to door survey in one locality. 
• A couple of us will be working with the staff at NMMC HQ to help them get their data organised.
• Another set of volunteers will be calling every person in home quarantine twice a day, to talk to them, to reassure them, to comfort them and to help them procure essentials.
• A few of us will be working with the local police to reach out to senior citizens living alone to see if they would like our help to procure food, medicines or any other essentials.
• We will be reaching out to as many building societies as we possibly can to get them to identify a resource person in their building who we will then connect with the government officials if a need arises.

Through all this, we will be working with the government officials. Our approach is to strengthen their hands by providing more human resources at their disposal.

How can you get started ? I will tell you what I did. I called the Municipal Commissioner. Within an hour he had connected me to three of his officials who have been coordinating with me ever since. I urge you to work with the local authorities.  

I would recommend that your offer will really be useful if you go in a group. It becomes easier for them to coordinate with a group than having to deal with each volunteer individually.

Does this not expose you to risk? Yes it probably does. But then, have you wondered why the civic authorities should put themselves at risk? And no, this is not what they signed up for. 

So, our volunteers will take the same precaution that civic authorities are taking.

Get out to Volunteer.

Remember, there was life before Corona Virus. And there will be life after Corona Virus. Because you would have done something about it.