Since the lockdown began, voluntary organisation Aid India has been distributing provisions to the poorest of the poor — both in and outside Chennai — with the help of a network it has built over the years. In Chennai, Aid India is said to have distributed nearly 40,000 masks to Government hospitals and a ventilator to a Military Hospital. The NGO has also distributed masks and provisions to conservancy staff of Greater Chennai Corporation and village-level sanitary workers.
However, to fully understand the size and reach of its network and how it is firing on all cylinders at this critical time, one has to take in the whole of Tamil Nadu, not just Chennai. So here it is: during the lockdown, more than 600 village tutors coordinate with 129 field volunteers to meet the requirements of residents in 803 villages across Tamil Nadu.
“When we began distributing provisions to the most needy families across the State; some of them did not even have ration cards,” says Balaji Sampath, founder, Aid India. As much of Aid India’s work takes place in villages where it runs free education centres, village tutors attached to the NGO are tasked with the job of identifying families that may need provisions. The tutors are supported in this work by resident-volunteers. M. Damodaran, secretary, Aid India, says: “Our village tutors know the people from villages that come under their area of operation.” The village tutor and resident-volunteers get to know of families that are in dire need.
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D. Varalakshmi, project manager, Aid India, Kaveripakkam block (Ranipet), says, “They in turn connect with the field volunteers to give an exact count of the people in need.”
The field volunteers buy the provisions and head to the villages to distribute them. At regular intervals — once in a week or 10 days — volunteers hand over additional provisions to those families that may need it.
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