Social organization’s efforts to focus on underprivileged women, children and youth in India.
As India, the second most populous country in the world, gets ready to face the COVID-19 pandemic, experts suggest that the efforts have to be manifold.
Given the divergent demography of India in mind, along with poverty and proximity of spaces, the response efforts in the country call for a greater regulation.
Keeping all these factors in mind, the American India Foundation, an organization that aims at building social and economic change in India, has launched a widespread COVID-19 response effort for India.
The foundation hopes to reach the goal of supporting the needs of underprivileged women, children and youth in India by leveraging its multi-sectoral programming on health, education and livelihoods across the country.
The need of the hour through this initiative is to serve and protect underprivileged communities against the COVID-19 pandemic, as well as to help them emerge strongly through the resulting social and economic crisis.
The AIF’s existing service delivery platforms comprise of frontline health workers, teachers. With the efforts of these critical resources the proposed framework will be delivered to not only contribute to COVID-19 preparedness and response, but also to longer term health system strengthening in India.
RELATED LINK: https://aif.org/donate/covid-19-response/
The foundation has also identified its focus areas to work towards this cause and would be looking at behavior change communication (including digital engagement), promoting community preparedness and building long-term resilience of communities.
“We believe that India’s poor, who have limited access to the right information, healthcare and are predominantly employed/self-employed in the unorganized sector, are expected to bear a disproportionate brunt of the economic fallout of this unprecedented health emergency,†said AIF CEO Nishant Pandey.
“In the medium to long term, the impact of job losses, disruption in children’s education and social isolation might turn out to be greater than those from the health emergency†he said.
“As the COVID-19 pandemic continues, American India Foundation is committed to ensuring the aid necessary so communities with the greatest needs are not affected the hardest during this crisis.â€
This is not the first time that AIF has launched its multi-pronged approach for relief work in India. In the past, AIF has carried on relief work during calamities such as 2001 Bhuj Earthquake, 2004 Tsunami, 2008 Bihar Flood, 2013 Uttarakhand Flood, 2014 Kashmir Flood, 2015 Chennai Flood, and 2018 Kerala Flood.
For its efforts AIF partners with NGOs and government to develop and test innovative solutions and with governments to create and scale sustainable impact.
Founded in 2001 at the initiative of President Bill Clinton following a request from then Indian Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee, AIF has impacted the lives of 5.6 million of India’s poor in 24 states.
AIF seeks the support of its donors and partners to augment its resources for the urgent implementation of this COVID-19 India Preparedness & Response Strategy.
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