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...

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 ...

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...