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Nerul couple helps raise ₹2.09 lakh for migrant workers
In less than two weeks, a Nerul-based couple managed to feed 81 families of migrant workers who were rendered jobless due to the coronavirus lockdown.
In less than two weeks, a Nerul-based couple managed to feed 81 families of migrant workers who were rendered jobless due to the coronavirus lockdown.
The couple raised Rs 2.09 lakh through crowdfunding to provide dry rations to the families and will distribute rations to 80 more families in the coming week.
Requesting to remain anonymous, the 32-year-old man and his 35-year-old wife, said they chose to do their part after getting pleas for help from some labourers’ families in Belapur. Having previously worked with a skill training organisation, the couple is completing their PhDs in social work from the Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS).
The duo first catered to around 15 families in Belapur and urged their friends and family members to help them raise funds. Each family is given a dry rations’ kit of close to Rs 1,400. It includes 10kg rice and wheat flour each, oil and pulses 2kg each along with sugar, biscuits and menstruation pads for women.
“We were overwhelmed with donations and exceeded our target. When we crossed Rs 2.09 lakh, we informed the donors that we are closing funding for the time being until remaining families are identified and handed over rations. We started this in Navi Mumbai as there are fairly fewer organisations to cater to affected migrants here as compared to Mumbai,” the man said.
After providing ration kits to 81 families in Nerul and Belapur which should last them around a month, the couple identified another 60 families with the help of a local social worker and will continue distributing the rations in a couple of days.
The couple has a policy of not clicking any pictures with the workers accepting food rations to not add humiliation to the workers’ plight most of whom have been self-sufficient, the woman added.
“During our first donation, we experienced that most of these workers who were capable of fending for themselves and their families are now forced to accept charity. Some do not even meet the gaze while accepting the ration because they felt undignified,” the woman said.
The couple shared that some shopkeepers, upon learning the food is for migrant workers, offered them to buy cheaper quality grains to save money. “We did not want any worker and their family to eat something that we would not. We had to keep a quality check too,” the duo added.
Like the couple, even the 69 individual donors who donated to this cause have remained anonymous. Such is the anonymity that two sisters from the same family said they both have donated money for the migrants. Both the sisters had the same request, “Please do not tell my family.”
