Fighting the coronavirus outbreak is challenging in India, especially for the poorest slum-dwellers who cannot implement social distancing and need to work to survive. Drinking water, food and medicines are scarce. Udaan, a field action initiative for dignified livelihoods for marginalised women in the slums of Mumbai, initiated by the Tata Institute for Social Science and RLC Mumbai coordinator Swati Banerjee, has been tirelessly working on relief for affected households.

Read Udaan’s response to COVID-19 here:

Udaan has been working with the self help group towards empowerment and building of a micro enterprise in lap top bags/ conference bags production with women in Rafique Nagar who are daily earners and one of the most marginalized groups in the city of Mumbai. Most of these families are affected by the 21 days lockdown in terms of access to drinking water, food and medicines. Udaan has responded to address these gaps through focusing on community based relief efforts for survival, empowerment and dignity. A community coordination committee has been set up consisting of women from the self help group and youth from the community who are identifying the most needy and the immediate grocery requirements for them. Based on this, Udaan is connecting them to existing individual and civil society efforts. The community coordination group then takes the responsibility of procurement from the given vendor, distribution and documentation.

So far, the relief has been carried out in 3 phases and reached out to 207 households in total.

Phase 1: Grocery kits to 47 households were donated by Mr. Fahad Ahmad.
Phase 2: Grocery kits to 50 households were donated by One Step Many Smiles.
Phase 3: Grocery kits to 100 households were donated by One Step Many Smiles. Grocery kits to 10 households were donated through funds raised by crowd-sourcing (total 6 donors). Sanitary Pad Packets to 110 women were donated by One Step Many Smiles.

Each of the grocery kit contains the following items:

1) Rice – 5 kg 2) Wheat Flour – 5 kg 3) Pulses – 2 kg 4) Cooking Oil -1 litre 5) Red Chilly Powder – 2 Packets 6) Turmeric Powder – 2 Packets 7) Coriander Powder – 2 Packets 8) Soap – 2 9) Salt – 500 g