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Sustaining hope during pandemic |
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"Covid-19 pandemic has caused tremendous pain to millions of people around the world. Most societies were unprepared for a shock of this scale and intensity. While it exposed the weakness of grassroots infrastructure for health, nutrition, employment and other basic needs of the people, it also demonstrated both the faces of human nature – the kind and not so kind. The challenge is to learn from it and be ready for future recurrence of the pandemic, be it the third or fourth wave. I review some of the efforts we made to alleviate the sufferings of the migrants stuck in the city during the first wave. There were many who needed attention and support of civil society. These included the wards of the Covid-19 patients unable to take care of their families with earning members in the hospitals, unemployed wage workers, artists, craftsmen and many other who lost their jobs during lockdown or faced reduction in their income in the subsequent phase of Covid-19. Migrant workers had to walk long distances to reach their home facing a lot of adversities on the way. Many who could not leave hoping that lockdown might be short-lived, were without food because their contractors had abandoned them, their savings were over. A lot of vendors who sold things on cart every day were without work and under huge debts
When a calamity of this scale strikes, some people do rise to the occasion to provide their best to the poorest. I remember some members of Sikh community washing the feet of the migrants walking back to their homes, thousands of kms away because the transport was not yet available and their sole has blisters. These good Samaritans cleaned their feet and bandaged the wounds to provide some succor. Of course, some people took advantage of the vulnerability and charged exorbitantly for providing transport support. But let us ignore all those events where human spirit could have been expressed better. Those who fed thousands of migrants and in some cases arranged transport for them deserve our gratitude and appreciation. Similarly, doctors and health workers, police and other administrators in many cases went out of their way to help people in pain. Could we have done better? The answer unmistakably is yes. Will we do better in future? The answer is may be if we learn the right lessons and implement them flawlessly.
One of the initiatives GIAN team took with the support of Honey Bee Network volunteers was called Anapoorna. Idea was that providing food without any reciprocity might hurt the self-respect of the poor construction workers and other stuck in the city without any job, income and food. We
persuaded the affected workers to appreciate that food we were offering was something that could be obtained easily. But we wanted them to share some of their knowledge which helped them survive in the difficult times. Through donations from many friends, we started Food for Knowledge Programme in Gujarat, Chhattisgarh, Tamil Nadu, J&K, etc. Very useful knowledge was collected and is being pursued further for validation and value addition. This interaction also brought out a very important lesson in dealing with stress. There is no situation of vulnerability which cannot be converted into an opportunity for graceful learning and dignified interaction.
Another experiment pursued during the Covid-19 period was distributing vegetable seeds by GIAN team to hundreds of school teachers in Gujarat and Maharashtra. Idea was that since the children were not coming to school, the extra time available with the teachers could be put to better use. Seeds were shared with them by GIAN and HBN team to grow vegetables on the roof or on the ground where space was available. When the schools reopen, children would learn to develop green fingers and also improve their nutritional condition by consuming these as a part of their mid-day meal or at home. The results were extremely promising and teachers distributed the vegetables to pregnant women, needy children and others in the community. This experiment would be continued next year too.
Covid-19 has made us realise the need for the children who were out of education because of lack of access to online possibilities. Parents of almost 60 per cent of the children do not have access to smart phones or access to internet. However, there were some exceptional government school teachers who made valiant innovative efforts to include such students who were excluded. Some teachers used cable TV networks to deliver the recorded lessons to children having cable connection without needing a smart phone or internet. Ashokbhai and his colleagues could cover 20,000 students instead of 2000 possible conventionally. Some other teachers used loud speakers system of the village council for broadcasting the lessons. Some pasted the posters on the walls for children to learn on their own by taking interest in the experiments. Bala Jadav, an assistant teachers in a government school, Maharashtra did something remarkable to overcome the asymmetry in the online education. He was selected for an international award, HBNCRIIA [Honey Bee Network Inclusive innovation Award] about which we will share in the next issue. He realized that those who did not have smart phone had feature phone. He identified a function of feature phone which educational planners had ignored. He started teaching ten students through a conference call which didn’t cost the students anything but made him reach 40 children in four calls. Inclusive frugal innovation often exploits an under-explored feature of a constrained situation without further burdening the users in any way.
Covid-19 has been a calamity but we could see that nature could recover very quickly during the period when economic activity has come to a standstill. Obviously, nobody would like to stop the engine of growth and development for regenerating nature. At the same time, without ensuring the regeneration of the nature concomitantly with the industrial development processes, there is no future. Time has come to reduce our consumption and modify our lifestyle. If we don’t allow the birds to sing, squirrels to collect grains and white ants to recycle biomass, we will pay even a heavier price in the wake of future crisis. This is the most important lesson from nature within and nature without have to find a new balance and synergy. It is hoped that the conservation of biodiversity, wildlife, habitats of the other life forms, centre of origin of rivers and other components of ecosystem will be rehabilitated. The transfer of diseases from one species to another and reduction of immunity due to change in our lifestyle and food habits are all part of the same equation of survival. Creativity without compassion will desertify our environment and collaboration without empathy will lead to dominance and exploitation. Let us rediscover a vibrant, hopeful place for our future generation under the sun.
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| Volume No. |
Honey Bee, 31(3-4) ,3-4, 2020 |
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