In the five weeks since Gram Vikas initiated the COVID-19 response, we have reached out to about 45,000 households in 1043 habitations in 116 Gram Panchayats across 8 districts. Our pool of response efforts have included COVID awareness, care facility and surveillance, vaccination drives, and volunteers and health workers training. In addition, migrant workers and their families have received food kits, and teams are training to provide psychosocial support and continued education for children in remote habitations.

We are currently supporting communities, local governments and health administration in Gajapati, Ganjam, Jharsuguda, Kalahandi, Kandhamal, Nayagarh, Rayagada and Sundargarh districts in Odisha.

Gram Vikas’ COVID-19 programme is multi-pronged to help marginalised communities cope with the interlinked issues of health, life, livelihoods, food, and mental health.

A. SUPPORT AREAS

1. COVID-19 CARE IN REMOTE VILLAGES

Facilitated CoWIN registrations, supported local governments to plan for vaccination drives, and augmented human resource support at vaccination centres.

• Registered 2853 persons between 18 to 44 years from 92 habitations in 61 Gram Panchayats across 11 districts on CoWIN for vaccination. 71 Community Volunteers and 49 staff are facilitating the vaccination drive. Read detailed reports from Gajapati and Kalahandi.
• Planned a vaccination strategy, in collaboration with the Block Development Office of Gunupur in Rayagada district, to support 23 Anaganwadi workers for rolling out vaccination drives in their villages.
• Supports COVID Vaccination sites at two Community Health Centres (CHC) in Jagannath Prasad block in Ganjam district. Team members at these sites help with crowd management, ensure people follow physical distancing guidelines, take temperatures and collect ID details of those coming to vaccinate.

Set up and running a 50 bed COVID Care Centre, have supplied hygiene materials to frontline health workers and facilitated COVID-19 screenings.

• Set up a 50-bed Cluster level COVID Care Centre currently housing 59 migrant workers including 24 women and 24 children under 15 years of age, in Thuamul Rampur block of Kalahandi district. The Centre has an additional 50 beds for those testing positive to be in isolation. Read about the centre here.
• Supported decontamination and disinfection of COVID Care Centre (CCC), and sanitary workers’ safety, in Baliguda block of Kandhamal district, through distribution of cleaning materials and sanitary boots and gloves for workers at the facility.
• Distributed hand sanitisers and soaps to 850 households in 14 villages in K. Nuagaon Block, Kandhamal district.

Mobilised Oxygen Concentrators, BiPaP Ventilators for treating COVID affected patients and distributed personal protective equipment to keep volunteers and health workers safe.

• Distributed 1480 Pulse Oximeters; 5468 oximeter batteries; 2734 PPE kits consisting of  overalls, face shields and washable masks; and 1367 bottles of hand sanitisers to community volunteers and ASHAs. As many of our health workers and volunteers wear sarees, 70% of the overalls sourced were those that can be easily worn over a saree and the remaining 30% were the two piece kits.
• In collaboration with Medical Oxygen for All (MOfA), an international volunteer group, we supplied 10 Oxygen Concentrators to five Dedicated COVID Health Centres each in Gajapati district and Rayagada districts, and seven BiPAP ventilators to the district administration in Kalahandi and Rayagada.

Trained 182 community volunteers, health workers and local government representatives in COVID-19 surveillance and care, and reached 1043 habitations with COVID-prevention awareness drives.

• 111 Community Volunteers, 32 ASHA workers, 11 ANMs, 16 Anganwadi Workers, 3 CHC Doctors, 7 ward members and two Sarpanches from four districts trained in the use of Oximeter, IR thermometer, assisting health workers in COVID surveillance, monitoring and guiding people in home isolation, and liaising with PRIs and CHCs for improved support to moderately symptomatic persons and persons with limited/ no home isolation facilities.
• Awareness drives on COVID-19 preventive measures reached 45,000 households in 8 districts. Mobile vans with mounted speakers travelled through 1043 rural and Adivasi habitations playing pre-recorded audio messages and songs on the importance of wearing masks, maintaining physical distance and proper hand washing practices. Watch a video on Gram Vikas awareness efforts.

2. NEED SPECIFIC SUPPORT TO VULNERABLE HOUSEHOLDS

965 vulnerable households in 174 villages across Ganjam, Gajapati, Kalahandi, Kandhamal districts identified for need-specific support.

The Village Development Committees and Gram Vikas field teams across four districts identified 965 vulnerable households for need-specific support. The team has collected household-wise data to customise material and dry ration support as per the local needs and food preferences. Children, sick persons, and destitutes in all the villages will be given additional health and nutrition support. Distribution of dry ration kits will start from the second week of June.

3. SUPPORT TO MIGRANT WORKERS

1507 migrant workers and their families in Kerala benefited from food kits distributed directly and in partnership with CMID and ESAF Small Finance Bank. The Bandhu helpline responded to 1341 calls from migrant workers.

1507 migrant workers and their families have received food and essential materials kits with a dry food ration of rice, flour, pulses, potato, spices, tea, soap, mask, and sanitizer. We directly reached out to 554 migrant workers and their families, while the larger network of CMID and ESAF reached out to 953. Read more about the food kit distribution in Kerala.

Our 24×7 Bandhu Helpline has so far responded to 1341 calls from its four nodes – two in Kerala and two in Odisha.

4. SUPPORT TO CHILDREN

Assessments ongoing to identify vulnerable children in 50 remote villages for health and psychosocial support. Learning Centres being restarted and set up to support ongoing education for Highschool children in remote habitations.

We will resume the village level Learning Centres catering to students from Classes 10 and 9, that were run during the first wave. Five such centres will start this week in Ganjam district, and about 20 more in the coming days.

Two senior staff members are currently undergoing training in providing mental health support to children and will in turn train the larger pool of Gram Vikas field staff and community volunteers to broadbase access to psychosocial support for children.

We are identifying children with heightened vulnerability for offering specific, targeted support. Priority is being given to children living with any acute short-term  or chronic long-term diseases and in urgent need of medical care, those eligible for regular immunisation, but, have not been immunised, those severely malnourished and need immediate attention, and children from extremely poor families with no access to social entitlements and suffering from food insecurity.

B. PARTNER SUPPORT

Arghyam, Azim Premji Foundation, Center for Migration and Inclusive Development, ESAF Small Finance Bank, Gram Vikas USA, Medical Oxygen for All, RCRC, Skoll Foundation, and Swasth have supported Gram Vikas’ COVID-19 Response work.

C. CONTACTS

The senior management team members responsible for the different activity areas are listed below.

Follow us on LinkedIn | Facebook | Twitter for regular updates on COVID-19 response.

Donate to support our work: COVID-19 RELIEF FUND FOR HEALTH AND LIFE SECURITY