Satsang Seva Journal

Noida is home to a large migrant community that provides services as domestic workers, rickshaw pullers, and daily wage-workers in construction.  For seven days, we distributed 350 packets of cooked food (5 puris and halwa/kala chana) to workers and to passengers bound for destinations in Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, and Jharkhand.  Between May 21-27, we served 2,450 hot food packets of Puri Halwa/Chana to migrant workers in Noida.  We also provided 985 (850 adult and 135 childrens) facemasks.  We enlisted the help of the local police to carry out this project, beginning first with unemployed daily wage-workers, including construction workers at labour camps.  Concurrently, the UP government began dispatching migrant workers on buses to destinations in Uttar Pradesh.  As the state governments arranged trains, Noida police also took on the transport of these passengers to railway stations.   Consequently, our primary distribution turned out to be the temp...

Noida is home to a large migrant community that provides services as domestic workers, rickshaw pullers, and daily wage-workers in construction.  The construction community is particularly vulnerable as most of them are housed in temporary tenements and semi-finished buildings, several without family, being brought here by contractors who in turn, are unable to support them financially at present or send them home.  The plight of the workers is further compounded by their inability to access government ration programs or linked Aadhar card schemes.  Large numbers have decided to walk back home, driven by hunger.   The Noida Expressway is a location where stranded workers are being convinced to stay in place by the police, in labour camps.  Based on research in concert with the local police, we identified clusters in Sector 133 and 134 on Noida Expressway for distribution of dry rations.  The police have been instrumental in helping and feeding their co...

The Delhi Kendra SSM group has distributed dry rations for two weeks to 100 families of cancer patients, COVID patients and patients with Chronic Kidney Disease who have also tested positive for COVID, arriving from all over the country for treatment at the All India Institute for Medical Sciences and the Safdarjung Hospital in Delhi over the 10th and 11th of May, 2021.  The families are either mostly living in Dharamshalas near the hospitals or even on pavements outside the hospitals with little or no access to food and essentials, given the curfew orders to contain the pandemic in the city. The distribution was done at the Dharamshalas and the Emergency wards of both hospitals where patients were awaiting treatment. Each dry ration pack contains 5kg Rice, 5 kg Atta, 1 Litre oil, 1 kg sugar, 250 gm tea, 250 gm salt, 2 kg Channa Dal, 100 gm turmeric, 1 Dettol Soap and 1 detergent for washing clothes.

The Eera Nenjam Old Age Home at RS Puram in Coimbatore provides shelter to around 80  people who are above 60 years of age. Mrs. Subbulakshmi, the manager of this home, requested the members of the Satsang Seva Mission team at Coimbatore to provide essential medicines for the elderly. On the 8th of May 2021, the SSM team provided essential medicines, diapers, masks, and sanitizing kits.   Mrs. Subbulakshmi expressed much gratitude to Team SSM Coimbatore for this gesture.

At the height of the pandemic in May, 20 of the 32 women and girls resident at the Sri Padmavathi Educational Rural Development Society (SPERDS) in Medak, Telangana tested positive for COVID 19. The institution, dedicated to empowering orphan girls and destitute women, ensures that they are provided an education and vocational skills till the age of 19. Their future is then secured through helping them obtain gainful employment and organising the weddings of those who so desire. Mrs. Sujatha Majety, the caretaker of the institution, was struggling to fund both their food and medication given the precarious situation that prevailed and reached out to the SSM Hyderabad team for help. By this time the cook had also tested positive and meals had to be ordered from outside, increasing expenses. On 4 May 2021, the team helped her fund the meals required on a daily basis and purchase a month's supply of dry rations comprising of rice, lentils, oil, and condiments.

Food supplies for 50 children aged between six and 16 years residing in the Mathru Abhaya Foundation Orphanage in Kamla Nagar, Medipalli on the outskirts of Hyderabad, were fast running out during the height of the devastating second wave of the COVID pandemic. In sheer desperation, the orphanage staff reached out to a team member of the Satsang Seva Mission to help replenish its meagre supplies so that the children could at least have one square meal a day.  The team helped them procure dry rations comprising of rice, lentils, oil, wheat flour, and condiments for two weeks in addition to some toiletries for the children on 3 May 2021 .  The cheerful faces of the smiling children warmed the hearts of the SSM volunteers, brightening up the dark days that everyone was passing through.