Contributing to the ongoing relief and rescue operation in flood-hit Kerala, a group of 12 women are working round-the-clock to follow social media leads and call victims to verify the authenticity of their predicament.
The women, who hail from various parts of the country, met at a change.org training camp around nine months ago. Now a part of the ‘She Creates Change’ community, the Kerala floods gave them an opportunity to put theory to practice. Ten group members from Mumbai, New Delhi, Chandigarh, Noida, Bangalore and Pune were later joined by two students from Mumbai, says Jincy Varghese, an city-based engineer who is talking to victims. Luckily, there were four Malayalam speakers in the group, making interaction with victims easier.
“When the floods hit Kerala, we started chatting with each other, thinking of doing something to help. On an impulse, we started calling victims. When we realised that we could actually help them, there was no looking back," says Ms. Varghese.
Tracking disaster
Sagina Walayat, a lawyer from Chandigarh, and Parul Mathur from Noida picked up leads from social media from posts by victims or their kin. Messages with team members’ Twitter handles were posted on social media, and people began contacting them. They would then pass on the leads to the rest of the team.
Besides Ms. Varghese, the other Malayalam speakers were Shilpa Shree, a city-based freelance writer, Bangalore-based journalist Liffy Thomas, Nirmala Nair, a corporate professional from New Delhi and city-based students Vidhya Nair and Sreeshresta Nair. After verifying the authenticity, they would pass on the information to Vijaya Moorthy, a Pune-based development and policy professional and Namita Sood, a social worker from Delhi.
Ms. Sood and Ms. Moorthy forwarded verified leads to a friend in Bangalore, who knew officials involved in the rescue operations. Ms. Sood said, “The friend in Bangalore and his friends were doing their best to pass on information from social media to the officials. Thats when we felt that we, as a team, could help him." Pracheta Budhwar, a life and executive coach and Pranay Manjari, a CSR professional with a private company in Bangalore maintained the database.
Till now, the team has called close to 400 victims, which helped in rescuing nearly 9,557 stranded people. “Our effort, which began on Friday, continues. Now, we’re are verifying if leads we forwarded have been acted upon successfully. We are also verifying if they are at an authentic relief camp," Ms. Shree said.
‘I broke down’
Ms. Varghese said, “I have broken down many times while interacting with victims. Some of them were brave enough to console me. I spoke to a woman stranded with her prematurely born infant aged only one and a half months. As a mother, I could feel her pain and broke down while speaking to her. The woman was kind enough to call me on Tuesday to check if my aunt, who was not traceable during the floods, had been found. This act touched me. In another case, a man was stranded with his mother's body, who had died a day ago.”
Ms. Shree added, “One victim was stranded on the first floor of his house. He said his wife had died and her body was floating somewhere in house. I couldn’t speak to him any more. I couldn't imagine what they were going through. The maximum calls I attended were from Chengannur, Pathanamthitta and some from Aluva.”
