Smile Foundation India
SUPPORT A CAUSE
Logo
Smile Foundation India
DONATE NOW

Author: Smile Editorial Team

Categories
In The Spotlight Smile

World Day against Child Labour greyed by COVID19

World Day against Child Labour greyed by COVID19

In 1993, the Government of India has introduced a law to prohibit any individual below the age of 18 years to be engaged by a commercial or family business in any form of dangerous employment or labour to safeguard the mental, spiritual, moral or social development. This law tightened further in 2006, ensured that no child below the age of 14 years can be engaged in any form of labour for the benefit of a commercial or family business. Since 1919, the International Labour Organization has been waging a war against child labour across the world. However, the World Day against Child Labour this year looks bleak in the face of the ongoing pandemic in the world.

 

An estimated 386 million children worldwide live in extremely dire poverty, as of 2019 as per a report by the United Nations. The current pandemic of coronavirus disease or COVID-19 will likely result in around 66 million children falling into poverty as the world struggles with a crippling economy. According to a census 2011 report, as many 10.1 million children are engaged in child labour in India and as the world readies itself to get back on its feet after the pandemic is contained, a lot of children will either be forced to engage in child labour for their own survival and/or trafficked into child labour by rings of traffickers. A lot of families struggling to survive will also pull their children out of schools to be made a bread earner to help them and support them in running the family

Children around the world belonging to underprivileged communities have also lost access to education. With a lockdown in place for the past four months in over 188 countries to order to break the spread of disease, only two-third of the countries with mandatory lockdown could provide children with distance and digital learning. However, for children without access to the internet or a device to access the internet, there are no measures taken to prevent their education from being hampered. Only 30% of the children in developing nations were able to continue their education amidst the lockdown.

 

 

These children who are faced with a lack of education and now a danger of being pushed into child labour also face the crisis of malnutrition. 368 million children in 144 countries rely on their schools for nutrition through mid-meals provided to them. Millions of these children will also end up losing access to proper nutrition essential for their survival, physical and mental development, if and when pushed into child labour.

 

The World Day against Child Labour, celebrated on June 12 every year, is faced with hard and inevitable circumstances of millions of children in India and across the world becoming victims of child labour again. Years and years of hard work and efforts put into bringing children out of the circle of exploitation and harm will be rendered useless unless the world order decides to confront the problem head-on.

 

Even though the circumstances look bleak and a little like a post-apocalyptic movie, the situation is not entirely a lost cause, if the government and non-government agencies tie hands together and commit themselves to ensure that not a single child rescued from child labour has to go back to the deplorable lives again.

 

UNICEF Executive Director Henrietta Fore commented on the situation saying, “As we re-imagine the world post-COVID, we need to make sure that children and their families have the tools they need to weather similar storms in the future. Quality education, social protection services, and better economic opportunities can be game-changers.”

 

 

Presently, ILO and UNICEF are developing a simulation model to look at the impact of COVID-19 on child labour globally and design the means to provide essential support that countries most at risk will require in order to help to mitigate the crisis in terms of child labour will arise in the world.

 

Smile Foundation, committed to its goal of bringing every child in school, has ensured regular contact with parents of our present beneficiary children to not let their morale down and consider taking their children out of school in the post-pandemic time. Smile has also reached out to people with support and donated over a million people with daily rations so that they do not have to worry their or their children’s survival in such difficult times.

 

The efforts being put by national and international authorities and the resolutions being adopted on the World Day against Child Labour by NGOs 7 IGOs, however, will not be possible without the support of the privileged of our country. People with resources to help the worst affected by the pandemic need to donate essential support so that we all can bring a brighter future to every child of this country.

Categories
From The People, For The People

Child for Child & Stop Motion Animation Workshop

Child for Child & Stop Motion Animation Workshop

The world has been in a complete shut since February this year and the new normal of working and exercising the day to day activities remotely from our homes, away from the public or any kind of gatherings is expected to last for some time as scientists work round the clock to develop a vaccine for COVID-19 disease.  In the current state of affairs, the worst affected are the children who have been snatched of their routine, their daily engagements with their friends, teachers, and loved ones and including all outside activities. The support that a child for child extends in a community has all but lost in the lockdown.

 

The restrictions imposed in engaging in any events or activities requiring a gathering of people and maintaining the necessary physical distance have been difficult even for adults to practice and the kids face a rare kind of difficulty which neither the current generation of adults or the generation before them have to face. The restrictions imposed on children has started showing up in them in the form of extreme aggression and frustration as they lack the means of channelizing their energy into sports and education.

 

Helping children and their parents by educating them in ways to keep children engaged and encouraged in realizing their nonacademic potential, Smile Foundation through its Child for Child Program has reached to these children and parents to engage children in art and unleash their creativity in an effort to keep them busy & engaged productively & progressively.

 

 

Continuing the same, Child for Child in cooperation with Debjani Mukherjee organized “Online Stop Motion Animation Workshop”, where a number of like-minded artists, filmmakers, children, and youth film festivals, associations and more from across the world came together for interactive sessions, live chats, film online film screening and more to break the monotony and frustration of the lockdown in children.

 

Targetting the age group of children above 7 years of age, a mandala competition was organized on June 07, 2020, where children from all across the country could participate and bring out their bright and creative side.

 

Mandala is a Sanskrit word for “magic circle”.  Mandalas are circular designs symbolizing the notion that life is never-ending. This is an art form that interests people across all age groups. Creating this piece of art using organic materials like pulses, cereals, pebbles & flowers makes it look even more beautiful.

 

It’s a technique in animation used to bring static objects to life on screen. This is done by moving the object in increments while filming a frame per increment. When all the frames are played in sequence it shows movement.

 

 

The workshop entailed children to use organic materials from the kitchen & their gardens to make a Mandala piece of art. Then with the help of an easily downloadable App for Stop motion animation, they can make animated videos of their piece of art on their smartphone or their tablet or laptop. The response received for this competition was overwhelming with hundreds of children from across the country taking part in the campaign.

 

In a time of crisis and isolation, art and literature set free an individual to reach into the depths of their mind and bring out the creativity that is dormant inside them. Children can learn a lot from art and the same also helps in advancing their emotional quotient and the give a lift to the elements of empathy as well as sensitivity in children. It also acts as a great pacifier and a tool to invest the plethora of restrained energy into something meaningful, engaging, and educating.

 

This campaign is one among the many that Smile Foundation under Child for Child conducted over the past three months of lockdown in the country. With an aim to encourage children to grow aesthetically instead of staying hooked to television or mobile phones all day long, art and similar creative activities can bring out in children a realization of their view of the world.

Categories
In The Spotlight

World Environment Day 2020 amidst COVID-19

World Environment Day 2020 amidst COVID-19

For the past three months, the world witnessed unprecedented activities and occurrences. With a third of the world in complete lockdown, the global environment got the much-needed break from the intensive human interference with the natural cycle of the Earth. The World Environment Day, this June, will be unique since people around the world have not experienced fresh air, clean water, and nature in its raw form for decades that last up to half a century.

 

Coronavirus or COVID-19, that has spread across more than 190 countries in the world affecting over six million people in just three months is something that the population of the present century was not prepared. The pandemic has shut over half the population of the world inside their house this year since February this year. People across the world were brought face to face with a freshening spring and now with a lovely summer where we all got to know what true nature – air, water, and earth is like.

 

Since the global shutdown that commenced across the world in February this year, the air quality around the world has improved drastically and the level of pollution has been cut by as much as 60% with factories and traffic having been brought to a standstill. The water in rivers and lakes is clearer due to the lack of ships and boats, and sightings of unique animals and mountain ranges are reported which has not happened in decades.

 

 

With human interference in nature reduced drastically, Earth has started showing signs of being healed. But like most things in life, even these changes are temporary and the situation will worsen once the lockdown is lifted. With a number of positive news in terms of air quality and more coming due to global shutdown, it is left to be seen what the environmental effect of COVID-19 will due to an increase in the production of bio-medical wastes. Single-use plastic has been utilized more to deliver food to people as they stay at home to prevent the spread of disease. Most of which is and will not be recycled due to the fear of virus propagation. Even with the approaching World Environment Day, incidences of illegal deforestation, poaching, and fishing have also presented themselves in nature conservation zones the surveillance around which were shut due to the fast-spreading disease.

 

The few positives news with regards to our environment during the global lockdown which was seen before World Environment Day are all set to be eclipsed by the negatives when the world goes back to being as it was before the lockdown. Besides the inevitable rise in global air pollution, overexploitation of natural resources to balance the economy and increase employment will also be witnessed when the pandemic is over.

 

It is just a matter of time that humans being as selfish they are, return things the way they were before the pandemic hit the world.

 

The world did not need a pandemic for people to realize the benefits of being responsible for nature. The environment around the world has been degrading at an alarming rate for the past decade and still, no effective means have been implemented to conserve and reverse the effects of extensive exploitation of resources for the benefit of humans.

 

 

The reason why a pathogen that is usually found in animals managed found a support system to enter the human body is primarily because of human encroachment is animal territories. There are millions of other virus strains and pathogens in animals, which can easily help themselves into humans and prove to be far more dangerous and with a higher mortality rate than the current COVID-19. As we destroy the homes of wildlife and force our way into their territories leaving them without the support of their natural habitats, we make the human population vulnerable to the diseases in which the animal species will be clueless to donate to us.

 

It is, therefore, immensely crucial for all us to do our part to support and protect the only world we will get in our lives to live. A healthy environment would help us in becoming a healthy human being at risk of lesser diseases. Maintaining a balanced eco-system and providing support to the needs of animals, trees and every necessary ecological entity is essential which we as humans need to implement urgently. For even if humans manage to find another life-sustaining planet within this galaxy, reaching it will not be possible any time soon if we destroy our present home.

 

This World Environment Day, let us all pledge to not ignore our duties and donate whatever resources we can muster towards our world and support in improving the health and well-being of our plant.

Categories
Insights

Gender Equality to lift the global economy

Gender Equality to lift the global economy

For decades now, people around the world have to the realization of the importance of gender equality and have assessed the benefits of active participation of women in various fields of life, be it running a family and managing a household or being a part of a multinational corporation.

 

Presently, women make up to 40% of the global workforce, 43% of the global agricultural labor force, and more than half the percentage of students studying in universities across the globe. As much progress as women have made in the past century, there still a long way to go to achieve gender equality in every aspect. Even today, in my parts of the world there, exists a wide gap leading to major gender disparities. As per a report by the World Bank,   

“Females are more likely to die, number to as many as 3.9 million every year, in many low- and middle-income countries. About  two-fifths of  them  are  never  born,  one-sixth  die  in  early childhood, and over one-third die in their reproductive years.”

 

 

Despite the progress made in terms of promoting women education, the number of girls enrolling in primary and secondary schools is still extremely low, especially in African and South Asian nations. Women also lack economic prospects, have no voice in domestic decision, are subjected to violence in many forms and have limited to negligible to access to opportunities to make significant progress in working markets.

 

The progress made in the past decades has taken a U-turn as the world struggles to fight with the pandemic of the novel Coronavirus or COVID-19 disease. With all the institutions instrumental in women empowerment and progress, the priorities of the world in the face of the disease have changed significantly. Most of the national and international agencies are now engaged in finding solution to looming problems like declining economy, increasing poverty, endangered food security alongside the primary problem of the all – finding a vaccine to the disease that has infected over 6 million across the globe.

 

Women across the globe have become externalities in the current situation and are the worst affected, especially in the poorest communities. The loss of job, source of living and increased subjugation to violence in confinement due to lockdown are among the few things that has left millions of women helpless and dependent for survival on their male counterparts.

 

Girl children and adolescent girls are facing a possible loss of education due to the lack of digital device which will leave them vulnerable to early marriage and exploitative relationships. UNWomen reports that over 743 million girls are out of school and adolescent girls are the most at risk of facing gender-based violations starting with the loss of education.

 

 

What people fail to recognize is that by limiting as well as hindering the lives of women and girls as it was before the pandemic, will have a reverse effect at both micro and macro level of economy and domestic engagements. If the world has to rise up from the cascading economy once the pandemic has been subdued, it has to bring into its force women’s support to aid and abet the efforts to revive the economy.

 

With the help of women and a focus on gender equality, the world can look at an increase in productivity as well as morale to contribute towards developing the world as it was before the disease broke out in the world. To support these efforts at a national level in India, Smile Foundation has continued the work promoting girl education and women welfare during the COVID-19 crisis. Swabhiman officers and community mobilizers are still working on the field to help women in underprivileged communities. The work on the same includes donating dry ration kits to women in underprivileged communities so that they do not need to choose between the needs of their children and families before attending to themselves and addressing their healthcare needs. The Swaobhiman mobilizers have also facilitated four institutional deliveries during the lockdown by helping pregnant women understand the signs of labor and bringing them to the hospital and ensure that these women get the necessary medical attention during childbirth.  

 

Under its scholarship program, Smile did donate to girls android tablets which have helped hundreds of girls in not losing out on their education during the four months of continued lockdown. Smile is also coordinated with its partners who are helping women by employing them for the production of facemasks and other protective gear. By employing gender equality in its workforce at ground level and also continuing the training of adolescent girls and women under its STeP program, Smile will support women by empowering them and helping them join the workforce to lift the declining economy and make it stronger than it was before.

Categories
From The People, For The People

Helping our communities during coronavirus

Helping our communities during coronavirus

Daily wage labourers in remote rural areas and urban slums are struggling the most during these uncertain times of #COVID19. With Dry Ration distribution in every far-flung corner, Smile Foundation is helping the communities during coronavirus with easy access to food and essential items in such challenging times.

 

Tribal migrants from Chhattisgarh, specially the Muria and Gond Tribes displaced in the bordering districts and neighboring state of Telangana, have been living without adequate food and clean water, basic healthcare or livelihood opportunities for a long time, and the lockdown has worsened their situation further. There are about 216 of such inhabitants with nearly 2400 families.

 

Let’s help our communities during coronavirus

 

Helping our communities during coronavirus, Smile Foundation has reached 4 such villages (Regulavendi, Sarvikothur, Ramnagar and Rayanpeta) of Kunuavaram Gram Panchayath to provide dry ration kits, with the hope that this distribution will enable them to survive the lockdown.

 

The lives of the families of of Kutia Kondh primitive tribe in Kalahandi, Odisha were deeply impacted due to lockdown. These communities which are cut off from the rest of the world fall in isolated areas and reside in deep forests. The tribes which rely primarily on natural resources for their survival and crop cultivation, have received rations for a month.

 

 

More than 250 families of the primitive tribes- Kutia Kondh received dry rations in Kalahandi district which included 6 villages which were covered under Lanjigarh block.

 

Even though most areas from the North Eastern states have been declared as green zones now, the movement of goods and service providers into remote corners such as the seven sisters has become a bigger challenge than ever, due to the lockdown.

 

Helping our communities during coronavirus

 

In such a situation, the distribution of dry ration kits containing food for 30 days for a family of 4 members each at Singrijan and Niuland areas in Dimapur, Nagaland, and Damdamia in Tripura, is hopes to bring the relief to the people.

 

To help provide relief to people visit https://www.smilefoundationindia.org/smile-fights-covid19/

Categories
Insights

Changing scenario in Education, Health-Care, Work

Changing scenario in Education, Health-Care, Work

There is a famous adage “Man learns little from success, but much from failure”, it stands true, as every country is struggling in terms of insufficiency of current systems like health-care, to tackle the coronavirus epidemic and its aftermath effectively. With thousands around the world succumbing each day to the effects of the virus, the limitations of our healthcare system stand exposed. The analogue system that we took pride in will have to be replaced with the digital system as doctors complain how the pervasiveness of COVID-19 has clearly outpaced their ability to test, track and quarantine the people with symptoms of the disease. The age-old schooling system to teach students has gone for a toss while businesses are struggling to revamp their work processes to continue functioning as before.

 

Inducing Digitization in Healthcare

 

To counter the rapid spread of the disease, many private health-care companies have adopted digital solutions while deciding their next course of action through remote videoconferencing. However, this is limited to a few as many hospitals and clinics still rely on in-house visits and continue to operate from behind the brick-and-mortar walls. Availability of hospital beds is gradually dwindling, which has left the doctors to decide between hospital admission and home quarantine. The difficult choice between risking suppressed patients by exposing them to COVID-19 and suspending the much-needed care has called for an urgent transformation of our health-care delivery systems through digital technologies.

 

Digitization of healthcare services to help the poor

 

Though experts have talked about telemedicine in the past, disinclination towards the same had led to poor market penetration. The time has come to include essentially a digital imprint on all our health recovery strategic plans while finding a solution to factors that limit the execution of digital strategies in a country’s health-care system. Following ZERO CONTACT policy, Smile Foundation has launched a completely telephonic and digital Health Awareness Initiative, Baaton Baaton Mein Sehat to reach 200,000 children and families across 18 states of India. A team of medical experts and counselors from Smile Foundation are providing online medical assistance and tele counselling on queries about COVID 19, its precautions and the need for social distancing.

 

Online Movement in Education

 

The closing down of schools due to the mandated lockdown has not dampened students’ enthusiasm to learn more. Online learning platforms have replaced the blackboard teaching method. Since the announcement of the lockdown, Edtech companies have announced free live classes on their apps, thus, allowing more students to benefit from their online products. Collaboration tools developed by both indigenous and foreign companies to allow unlimited video conferencing time between teachers and students along with smart calendar scheduling are other benefits that bolster current education tools, thus, supporting the distance learning process. Across the world, media houses are offering curriculum-based learning for kids that help them cover a part of the content before the school reopens post the lockdown period.

 

Teacher training on online classes to help children

 

Smile Foundation through its programme Mission Education is conducting online classes for children during the lockdown and is also training teachers on conducting such classes to help children keep up with their studies.

 

‘Work from Home’ Opportunities will Surge

 

The pandemic has had a determining effect on how businesses are run. With offices forced to shut down and employees feeling compelled to work online from their homes, companies may review the benefits of having a virtual workforce in place though following the COVID-19 pandemic, some work activities are expected to resume as per their original plans. However, given the corporate flexibility that people have experienced working from the comfort of their homes and the resulting increase in productivity levels, people will get more freedom to work from home than spending time on their daily commute to and from their offices. Also, for employees going back to their workplaces, temperature checks and social distancing will be the new norm. Conference rooms, video studios and meeting spaces will be larger. The lack of human touch during social interactions will lead people to appreciate and value community interactions, thus, making way for increased creativity and innovation.

Categories
Insights

Global Food Security for everyone during COVID-19

Global Food Security for everyone during COVID-19

When the year 2020 began, it was not much out of ordinary. However, there still were 135 million people in the world who were struggling with starvation and consistent lack of sustenance and need help. As the year drew on, the world was faced with a situation that it was not prepared to deal with – Coronavirus or COVID-19 pandemic. The disease has affected over 4.5 million people across the world since its outbreak in December and now threatens global food security for millions of people around the world.

 

As of April 2020, analysts at the World Food Program have estimated the number of people facing extreme hunger to double by the end of the year to 265 million. In fact, the executive director of WFP has estimated that people might face famine in about three dozen countries worldwide due to the problems global food security is suffering at the moment.

 

With one-third of the world population shut inside their houses to avoid getting infected by the virus, the production, storage, and supply of the essential food grains have taken an immense hit. The manpower required to oversee and help in all the major aspects of producing and handling food crops is presently, either limited to their homes or are in an unfortunate event suffering from the disease.

 

 

To ensure the food security for their citizens, as many as 14 countries have implemented food export bans on food crops that are crucial to feeding a major part of the population of the countries that import food from these countries. This has caused both shortage of food and a spike in the prices of the food resources available in the market currently.

 

The shortage of food is not the only factor affecting global food security. In many countries, producers of poultry and meat and even food crops have been forced to destroy their crops as there is a decline in demand on the available produce of grain in hotels and restaurants, and with export bans in place, these food stocks are becoming rancid with each passing day. In 23 countries in Africa and the Middle East, a crisis within a crisis is occurring which immensely threatens global food security with the worst locust infestation in decades. The same has even displaced as many as 12 million people in Africa and brought over 24 million people on the brink of starvation.

 

On the other hand, farmers from low to middle-income countries are the worst affected in the present scheme of affairs. Farmers in countries, whose major GDP depends on agriculture and thus the livelihood of farmers, are suffering because of the loss of livelihood due to quarantine measures, self-isolation, and aversion behavior in response to an outbreak and require immediate support.

 

Besides the supply, demand, and production problems that global food security is threatened by, children from low-income families across the world need help as they are suffering due to malnutrition due to the loss of mid-day meals they got in schools which are now shut. Cases of undernourishment are at an all-time high which also has an immense impact on the health and immunity of these children as well as adults. There is also the loss of employment due to lockdowns placed not just in India but across the world that has left people without any source of income to provide for themselves and their families.

 

Child Education: Need of the Hour

 

The World Bank alongside WFP has implemented measures to counter the threats to global food security as well as the humanitarian crisis that has originated due to the pandemic. In India, they are supporting women self-help groups, built over a period of 15 years, and tapping the skills of about 62 million women across the country to deal with the pandemic and its externalities. 

 

Following their lead, Smile Foundation has mobilized its resources with the help of local grassroots NGO and volunteers motivated to aid their communities to successfully reach out to people living in urban slums of Delhi, Mumbai, Hyderabad, and other cities, rural villages of Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh, and Kolkata and tribal communities deep inside the forests of Telangana and Orissa. To date Smile Foundation reached out to 100,000 families and distributed over 9 million meals to people across 19 states in the country to help them cope with the current situation.

 

Combating the imminent threat to the global food security and playing an active part in the global relief initiative at the national level in India, Smile Foundation has taken the mission to provide food and support to vulnerable and high-risk families, strengthen financial services in rural areas, and disseminate COVID-19 advisories among rural communities.

 

To support the India Shares initiative of Smile Foundation visit https://www.smilefoundationindia.org/smile-fights-covid19/

Categories
Partners In Change

Volunteer – sharing the fight against COVID-19

Volunteer – sharing the fight against COVID-19

Pallavi Rege, 52, a volunteer from Pune has formed over 1000 self-help groups to help women from underprivileged backgrounds and worked for the past 27 years for the rights and needs of migrant workers. When the COVID-19 pandemic arrived in India, Pallavi’s put in efforts not just to provide the worst affected communities with rations but her prior initiatives in empowering women continued to aid the families of these women to survive through the crisis. 

 

All across the country, the efforts and dedication of volunteer(s) and community workers such as herself have been invaluable in helping organizations such as Smile Foundation and their corporate donors in reaching out with the crucial aid to help the migrant and daily wage laborer make it through the pandemic without having to worry about their survival.

 

Inspired by the legacy left behind by Dr. Abdul Kalam, Santosh from Hyderabad contributes actively towards society. Even though he lost his own income as a salon worker when the pandemic hit the country, he felt the need to work for his community and ensure that people at least had one meal every day and do not starve as they count their days without any source of income through this pandemic.

 

 

He created the list of all the people he could know of who needed urgent assistance and has been a volunteer with Smile Foundation since the beginning of the ration distribution campaign and has reached out with aid to every person he knew he could help. Santosh also provides tuition classes to children in his community for free and still dedicates himself to the task for he believes that education is the only way to empower and strengthen the future of the country – our children.

 

Similarly, Savita, community healthcare volunteer from Gurgaon, has been working relentlessly in fulfilling her duty towards the society by reaching out to people every day with awareness about their health and hygiene during these critical times. Despite being the sole earner of four family members with three daughters and an ailing husband, Savita recognizes the importance of the role in the community and the assistance people, especially pregnant women, women and newborns requiring immunization and medical aid, and women struggling with menstruation and other health problems, require.

 

She has played a crucial role in reaching people with knowledge related to the pandemic and the measures of social distancing and hygiene that they need to follow to protect themselves. Besides this, she has been an immense support in helping Smile Foundation reach out to the most deprived communities with rations to make it through the period of lockdown.

 

 

With the efforts of many more such individuals all across the country Smile Foundation has been successful in reaching out to people living in urban slums of Delhi, Mumbai, Hyderabad and other cities, rural villages of Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh, and Kolkata and tribal communities deep inside the forests of Telangana and Orissa. To date with the assistance and information provided by the volunteers and community workers from grassroots NGOs from across the country, we have reached out to over 60,000 families and distributed over five million meals to people.

 

Without the far-reaching resources and courage of people like Santosh, Savita, Pallavi, and more, it would have been next to impossible to bring the much-needed relief to the worst affected communities and to deal with the misinformation about COVID-19 and combat with the additional challenges this brings before overburdened frontline workers. A single case of misinformation can deeply risk the lives of thousands of people during a pandemic.

 

A volunteer is a very important entity of the public welfare system that ensures that critical resources reach out to the most affected people living in extremely necessitous regions of the country. Without his/her support, our work would be incomplete and full of unprecedented difficulties. For even if national agencies manage to reach out to the people with necessary information and resources, it is the local volunteers who help us in communicating it to people in their local language and help us in overcoming all the cultural and social barriers.

 

To help, support https://www.smilefoundationindia.org/smile-fights-covid19/

Categories
Insights

SDGs halted due to COVID-19

SDGs halted due to COVID-19

In 2015, United Nations General Assembly adopted 17 sustainable development goals (SDGs) to make the world a better place for the people worst affected by the raging poverty and inequality bringing to them a life of prosperity and opportunity. The primary aims were focused on eradicating poverty, inequality, hunger, and providing education, healthcare, clean water and sanitation, peace, and justice to the 7.5 billion people of the world. The UN had aimed to achieve these SDGs by 2030. However, the recent outbreak of coronavirus disease or COVID-19 pandemic has left the world struggling.

 

With the focus of the world leaders and welfare agencies in combating the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on the world population, the attention which SDGs require has taken a backseat with the resources crucial to achieving the goals by 2030 now being invested in fighting the pandemic.

 

The worst affected SGDs will be that of reducing poverty, inequality, and hunger among the global population. The Covid-19 pandemic has brought the world economy to a standstill. With a third of the world’s population in lockdown has left a major chunk of economy building industries, non-functioning. A report by World Economic Forum estimates that in the worst-case scenario where the global economy is reduced by 20%, as many as 500 to 600 million people will be pushed into extreme poverty. The highest ever in the past three decades. This will result in the creation of obstacles to achieve other SDGs of providing every individual with quality education, clean water and sanitation, and sufficient and effective healthcare. For people struggling with poverty; education, healthcare, and sanitation move lower on their list of priorities as they fight every day to survive and live in unimaginable conditions.

 

 

The increase in poverty will also lead to an increase in global hunger which will also be affected due to the reduction in the production of food as the world fights the pandemic by staying at home. There will also be an increase in inequality and discrimination on the basis of gender, race, and more. The worst affected will be women and LGBTQ people.

 

A working woman with children now is working from home, doing household duties, taking care of kids, and now also needs to pay attention to homeschooling her children. Tto prevent them from having a mental breakdown from being locked inside the house all the time she has to keep them engaged. This is the “triple shift”, i.e. three times the amount of stress a woman is suffering from due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

 

As many as 70% of women work in the retail, service, and hospitality sector and the lockdown in the majority part of the world, a large number of people have lost their jobs, out of which 60% are women. In many developing countries as in South Asia, as many as 80% of women work in non-agricultural jobs in informal employment (ILO report). 

 

 

These women do not have any legal security from the state to prevent them from losing their livelihood. The poorest are the worst hit. 57% of women who work part-time will lose their jobs in less than a quarter due to the economic slowdown that the virus is resulting in.

 

The world will also face an increase in the increase of environmental crisis to due excessive use of single-use resources and plastic to deal with the pandemic. An extreme rise in the amount of plastic and biomedical waste is expected which the world is not equipped to efficiently dispose of.

 

The only means to deal with the inevitable challenges that the world will face to achieve the SDGs is the global effort from both the world governments and the public. Governments, corporate businesses, multi-lateral national and international organizations, and worldwide civil society have in the shortest possible time raised billions of dollars to aid the front line workers as well as the population struggling to survive through the pandemic.

 

Taking this solidarity forward, we all together can contribute to do our part and help us all achieve the SDGs that will make the world a utopia all of us dream of living in. Keeping its focus equally on the relief efforts towards the crisis caused due to COVID-19 and the SDGs, Smile Foundation has continued with its work to serve the civil society by continuing its work in the fields of education, healthcare, and women empowerment. Utilizing technology to reach out to its beneficiaries, Smile ensures that the change brought in the lives of millions in the country does not come to a standstill due to a disease and aims to reach out to people not just with ration kits but also with the support and solace everyone needs in this time of difficulty.

 

You can also help by donating https://www.smilefoundationindia.org/smile-fights-covid19/

Categories
Partners In Change

Volunteers – The link between help and the helpless

Volunteers – The link between help and the helpless

During any large-scale crisis that puts a hold on human lives due to the massive impact it leaves in its wake, volunteers form a critical component in providing community relief and reaching out to people far and wide. It is the volunteers, community mobilizers, and social workers on the ground that become the essential link who help facilitate the effective means in bringing relief to the worst affected in any crisis.

 

COVID-19 is no different. The pandemic that has infected over four million people worldwide and continues to grow at an alarming rate has left a third of the population of the world confined to their houses. While it is essential for people to maintain adequate physical distance and hygiene, the volunteers and community workers have been on the ground working on the frontline in reaching out to help the vulnerable with the necessary aid.

 

The two most important responsibilities that these volunteers help agencies, such as Smile Foundation and corporates to reach out with aid to the needy, are awareness campaigns and resource distribution.

 

 

As the pandemic rages on across the world, rumors and misinformation become a major source of disruptions in the work of doctors, policepersons, and frontline workers as well as puts the health and lives of people at risk. Our volunteers and community mobilizers have played a crucial role in conducting awareness sessions in the most remote regions of the country about the disease and the necessary measures people must take to combat it.

 

They have ensured that people have the complete knowledge as publicized by credible health agencies about maintaining physical distance, personal hygiene, proper handwashing techniques and directions to be followed in case of appearance of any symptoms of the disease to minimize the contamination within the family and community.

 

Without the far-reaching resources and courage of our volunteers, it would have been difficult to deal with the misinformation about COVID-19 and combat with the additional challenges this brings before overburdened frontline workers. A single case of misinformation can deeply risk the lives of thousands of people during a pandemic.

 

The volunteers have also been our main point of action on the field in terms of helping us reaching to people with relief material. As the lockdown to cut the chain of infection continues since its commencement on March 24, millions of people have been left without work or any source of livelihood to survive through the pandemic as authorities try to mitigate and bring the situation under control. A lot of these people are migrant and daily wage workers who have nothing left with them with the loss of their source of income.

 

In order to help such individuals, make it through the lockdown until things become normal, people have extended a helping hand to provide essential rations and food material for these people and their families. It is our volunteers who are working tirelessly across the country to ensure that the aid being provided by NGOs, government agencies and corporate firms reaches the millions of people fighting with a hunger for their survival.

 

 

Our volunteers have reached to people living in urban slums of Delhi, Mumbai, Hyderabad and other cities, rural villages of Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh, and Kolkata and tribal communities deep inside the forests of Telangana and Orissa. To date our volunteers and community workers from grassroots NGOs from across the country have reached over 60,000 families and distributed over five million meals to people.

 

Volunteers form the arteries of the public welfare system who ensure that critical resources reach out to the most affected people living in extremely necessitous regions of the country. Without their support, our work would be incomplete and full of unprecedented difficulties. For even if national agencies manage to reach out to the people with necessary information and resources, it is the local volunteers who help us in communicating it to people in their local language and help us in overcoming all the cultural and social barriers.

 

To hep visit: https://www.smilefoundationindia.org/smile-fights-covid19/

0%