Satsang Seva Journal

Even as the capital city opens up in phases, migrant labour has started wending their way back from their villages to resume work. The Delhi-NCR SSM group distributed 1 ,500 washable, reusable cloth masks made by self-help groups in Chennai, supported by the TSF Chennai Kendra, to the homeless and destitute across the capital city over the past 10 days. The masks were distributed with the help of the Centre for Holistic Development headed by a Satsangi who helps run night shelters and food kitchens for the homeless and new migrants to the city.

  The Delhi-NCR SSM team was approached by the capital city’s largest tertiary care unit, the Deen Dayal Upadyhaya Hospital, when the pandemic was peaking to help them with supplies of disposable surgical gowns, latex gloves and N-95 masks for the use of their dedicated staff, working round the clock to deal with the influx of patients in COVID times. Dr. Ripudaman Kaur Chawla, Head of Office of the hospital who is also the Assistant Medical Superintendent, requested the team to help supply Personal Protection Equipment for their doctors in the form of : 300 Disposable Surgical Gowns 6000 pieces of latex gloves 1000 N-95 Masks While the Delhi-NCR SSM team were able to source the gloves and good quality disposable surgical gowns at a competitive price in Delhi, help was requested from the Mumbai team to procure the N95 Masks that were not readily available in the capital. Of the 6,000 pieces of gloves, 2,000 came from a donor impressed with SSM work for the medical fraternity.The Mu...

Team SSM Coimbatore was back in action in the Nilgiris on the 14th of  August 2021. When the team members interacted with the management of the Thoorigai Trust, they were informed that schools were unable to function in full steam. Based on discussions with the teachers, they came up with workbooks for the young children so that self learning could be continued easily. The teachers and parents supported this  initiative wholeheartedly. The team members also distributed masks and demonstrated the importance of maintaining social distancing norms to  reiterate the message of safety.

The heavy rains that lashed the capital this monsoon led to the collapse of 15 Jhuggis in Anna Nagar in Central Delhi, rendering 86 of their inhabitants homeless. These included 17 men, 36 women and 33 children. The families could barely escape with their lives as an overflowing drain bore away most of the houses in July. Officials shifted them to a roadside camp opposite the World Health Organisation building near the Income Tax Office on the Outer Ring Road, before moving them into an empty school. An SSM team visited the camp and saw that while food and bare essentials were looked after, the meagre possessions that they had regularly got stolen since they had no storage space. The team managed to procure 12 trunks with locks for the families to safely and dryly keep the documents and belongings that they managed to salvage, even as their petition for housing pended in court, extending their period of uncertainty. The trunks were handed over on the 28th of August with the help of fu...

  As India’s Coronovirus counts inched towards the million mark and NOIDA imposed a total lockdown for weekends till the end of July, requests for dry rations started coming in to SSM volunteers from different Jhuggi clusters around the area. The team tried to meet all the requests it received by supplementing its own stock with donations in kind from Satsangis , neighbours and friends. In the sultry monsoon heat, the Delhi-NCR SSM volunteers distributed 295 ration packs over five days from the 6 th to the 10 th of July depending on the requests received and the donations that came in. One hundred and thirty two ration packs were distributed in Sector 135 and 18 in Sector 94, where most tea sellers and other street vendors who cater to offices in the latter sector stay. The police has asked them not to operate as of now. Another 145 packets were distributed in Jhuggi clusters in three different locations in Sectors 92, 93 and 93b. Weary, teary-eyed people sat outside police chowk...

Covid 19 cases jumped to over four lakhs country-wide, seeing a rapid rise in the metro cities, especially in the national capital region, with a steady spike in numbers bringing them to a whopping 59,746 by the night of June 21 st . The Delhi-NCR team sought to contribute a drop in the ocean by sending 500 washable, reusable cloth masks for distribution by the Red Cross in Gurugram.The masks were distributed by them along with hygiene kits for distressed workers on the 14 th of June. Meanwhile the plight of the work force continued unabated. The “unlock” phase brought some hopeful migrants back from their villages, where they said there was nothing to sustain them. They joined the large number of workers from the lower income group, who had been laid off from work and found themselves in food queues having depleted their savings in paying school fees for their children (taking online classes) and rentals for their homes. A few of them had to move out of their homes to under flyovers ...

  207 Dry Ration Packs for NOIDA and rebuilding of five jhuggis destroyed by a storm: Even as the “Unlocking” phase continued under the technical lockdown, the Delhi-SSM team paused activities to reconsider where they should focus their resources, given the rapidly changing situation. Consequently, week 10 only saw the distribution of dry ration packages in NOIDA pending from last week due to the paucity of police personnel. The team distributed 170 dry ration packages in three different locations in Sectors 92, 93 and 93b on the 8th of June. This time people served included those from pucca homes, who have children in schools and have so far been living off their savings, but now have no money left to feed their families. They belong to the lower middle income group that has been forced out into the streets seeking sustenance. Many among them were household help and are not being allowed into apartment complexes by some Resident Welfare Associations. Some among them have been res...

As Delhi-NCR SSM activities touched week nine and the country entered what was termed the first “Unlock” phase from June 1, the massive churning caused by the COVID 19 Pandemic continued unabated. Cases countrywide hit 247,000, of which Delhi-NCR alone accounted for 27,000. The premier national All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) and Delhi’s only tertiary care hospital in its heavily populated Eastern district, the Guru Teg Bahadur Hospital, reached out to the team for Nitrile gloves, 3-Ply Masks and PPE Coveralls. Though difficult to procure because of the heavy demand, the team managed to provide 4,500 pairs of Nitrile gloves and an equal number of 3-Ply Masks to AIIMS and 150 Personal Protection Equipment Coveralls to the GTB Hospital on the 4th of June. In NOIDA and Gurugram, where the team has been distributing dry ration packs for eight weeks now, the demographics of the people served appeared to show a shift. While a lot of the daily wagers and construction labour, u...