Around 7 am in the morning I was used to watching several people going to their work place walking along the road beside our home. During the last few weeks, following the spread of COVID infection into the community and the restrictions imposed, I see an occasional person walking with his or her lunch packet on the road!
What happened to the rest! Less work and many have migrated searching for jobs!
The Mahatma Gandhi Rural Employment Programme sustains many families through the assurance of minimum working days. This is the only source of income for some families.
Now that too is falling apart!
It is long way to freedom for thousands who live in villages around us.
I take time to reflect on this helpless situation!
There are those who cannot find a bed in a hospital or an oxygen support in their neighbourhood when they suffer from COVID infection. There are others like this lady in the picture above, who need work to earn to sustain herself and her family!
The service providers focus on reforms in the society. A auto driver told me yesterday that some in his village do not get the ration supply from the public support system, as they are yet to get a ration card. Many individuals do not get the benefits that they are entitled for!
During the on-line consultation yesterday a family told me of the difficulty to find money to buy the medicines for a month!
There are many like this, who live struggling and endure to get access to the benefits they re entitled for! A family below the subsistence level is entitled to get a pension for supporting their developmentally challenged child! But there are some who wait for too long to be eligible!
Many walk alone in their journey to freedom from poverty and deprivation!
It is now 38 years since Anna and I have been associated with ASHIRVAD, in its efforts to 'take sides' of children and families with Neuro-developmental needs!
We stay aware that this mission is even more a calling now, at a difficult time such as this!
M.C.Mathew(text and photo)
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