The COVID-19 pandemic forced governments across the globe to shut their residents into lockdown. In India, the lockdown was announced on the evening of March 21st, which led to a humanitarian crisis in several parts of the country. Since then, millions of workers and students have been stuck in places and are unable to reach their homes because of strict restrictions on travel.
Millions of people have lost their livelihood and thousands are on the verge of starvation. The marginalised sections and the poor are fighting both COVID-19 and starvation.
Unlike the rest of India, the state of Karnataka went on a staggered lockdown before the announcement of nation-wide lockdown by the central government. Bengaluru experienced lockdown measures for restricting the spread of COVID-19 in early March. By March 13th, educational institutions were closed, and other public places were declared a no-go area. The lockdown impacted every section of society. These measures have taken a serious toll on the vulnerable sections of informal workers including the daily wagers.
Background
1% of the population in any city is engaged in the informal sector of waste recycling. The work ranges from workers who recover recycling materials from the street, waste itinerant buyers, sorters in small, medium and large aggregators of waste and finally people who process in the recycling industry.
Every one of them are daily wage earners, most with no minimum wage nor social security access. The recycling industry was shut down and the entire workforce was left without livelihood.
Waste in the cities mounted as the recyclables were not sent to the recycling industry but went to dumping sites or landfills and practices of segregation reduced.
The entire informal waste recycling collapsed, and many went hungry with no savings to lean on. The hair pickers, a specialised recycling material collector, were hit first. Export to China was shut in March so hair picked, sorted and cleaned lay in the houses of hair pickers.
The loan sharks were at the door asking for the loans they have taken earlier; with no access to food children were seen malnourished. Waste pickers worried more about dying of hunger than COVID-19 in the beginning as there was no community spread.
A small set of waste pickers engaged in door-to-door collection of dry waste (inorganic waste) continued their services as it was declared as essential services by the local government. Contaminated masks appeared in hundreds in the Dry Waste Collection Centres (the city’s decentralised dry waste management system). They faced the risk of infection with Covid-19 and also were challenged for food availability and problems in cash flows as they were not able to sell recyclables in the market at pay salary for the workers. The loss of livelihood and no timely salary hit them hard.
Past events like demonetisation [3] and recession in the plastic industry [4] had led to the depletion of income for waste pickers. This had directly and quickly resulted in malnourishment among children and women.
Learning from these experiences, Hasiru Dala quickly responded to this crisis, making hunger mitigation, medical aid, and access to funds for managing DWCC operations the primary goals of its intervention.
Hasiru Dala provided hygiene kits, protein kits and other special kits for children. These kits were provided to young children, lactating mothers, and pregnant women. The hygiene kits have been specially devised keeping in view the needs of target groups.
Our Intervention
Relief distribution
Because of our strong connection with the community, we had data available and were able to jump into ration distribution as early as March 18th for the most vulnerable members of our community affected by covid-19 —those who had no access to the public distribution system (PDS – Public food security program) , single parents, people on old age pensions.
Once the lockdown was announced with no end date, Hasiru Dala decided to extend support to other vulnerable communities’ cities with enough groceries for a month. Upon extension of lock down, vulnerable families were given groceries for additional months.
Hasiru Dala provided hygiene kits, protein kits and other special kits for children. These kits were provided to young children, lactating mothers, and pregnant women. The hygiene kits have been specially devised keeping in view the needs of target groups.
With information available from our Health Initiative data, in addition to quickly collected data of the people who were on regular prescription medicine, we were able to provide medicines for a month. Later the medication available from the Public Health system was accessed. However, most prescriptions for those with cardiac conditions were not available for free in the public health system so we extended support to them.
In collaboration with citizen group WithBengaluru, ration kits or grocery kits were given to migrants and slum dwellers who were in need.
Hygiene kits with soap, sanitisers, masks and an educational poster (attached poster here) were distributed in Nayandanahalli, which is a recycling hub where thousands of workers are engaged in sorting. This was carried out after the lockdown was ended and people started coming back to work with very little or no sanitation material and PPE.
Download PosterA book on COVID-19 was produced in Kannada that went to as many children as we could meet among waste pickers.
Download BookTwo reports in local newspapers in Nelamangala and another near Chikkaballapur highlighted the struggles of waste pickers who had not received any sort of food support from anyone. Hasiru Dala was quick to respond and supported waste picker families in both cases.
Support to DWCC
Hasiru Dala provided relief to the people running DWCCs by providing grocery kits and other financial support so that they keep on functioning. In the initial week of lockdown, we provided 15 DWCCs with diesel expenses for a week to ensure the collection did not stop and services were being rendered to the citizens. The DWCC workers were provided with personal protective gear and sanitizers by the organisation. For a few days, DWCCs workers were also provided cooked food.
In addition, to build awareness among citizens on safe disposal of used masks, a poster and video was released.
Fundraising
For us this was our first time raising funds online. The first poster that went online created a huge impact and donations started coming in. At first, we were surprised and thought people wanted to support Covid-19 relief work, but later we understood that Hasiru Dala has established credibility in Bengaluru. Our work of over a decade in this area has created a credibility with citizens and funders that we would use donations responsibly for the community.
Download Poster
Challenges
Manpower
With severe restrictions on movement, it was a challenge to get government and police permissions for vehicle movement and individual passes for Hasiru Dala team members and volunteers. The task required a large number of volunteers. The organisation was given only 40 passes which proved highly insufficient keeping in mind the scale of operations. We approached local citizen associations around the packing centres for volunteers. In this way, the volunteers could walk to the packing centres from their homes.
Resources
One of the primary challenges during the lockdown was the procurement of food grains when markets were closed, and no transport. There was shortage of grains and other essentials in the wholesale market due to restrictions on transport and absence of labour. While initially the grains were procured from the government wholesale market, they were later procured directly from the mills several kilometres away from the city.
Distribution
The other challenge was setting up distribution channels for Covid-19 relief. The special food kits were designed on the food habits of beneficiaries. Hasiru Dala had to ensure that the relevant kits are being distributed in specific areas and that there was no duplication of distribution. The community leaders made sure that the distribution was transparent. The state and municipal governments were supportive in the distribution of relief material. In one instance, the team had to take help of police personnel when their vehicle was surrounded by a desperate crowd.
Relief effects on Hasiru Dala
Hasiru Dala rose to the occasion and every team member went beyond call of duty to support the efforts; it was also an amazing team building exercise for the organisation.
We were able to identify more waste pickers in the city, people who lived in remote areas or people we knew who moved out of the city because of eviction. More than 500 families are now in touch to continue our work.
Future Challenge and Post-Lockdown Strategy
The biggest challenge before the organisation is to revive the economic activity of WPs. There is a threat that WP families might end up in debt and their children can drop out from the schools.
Efforts are made to re-erect the recycling industry and our demand has been that the recycling industry should be considered as an essential service operation (like the food industry) and a MSNE (micro, small, medium enterprise) that needs investment.
The collection of waste from households is declared as a part of essential services and not recycling or waste processing. The waste pickers were out of work and godowns are full of dry waste. Even once the lockdown was lifted, there was reduced demand for scrap and other solid wastes due to the slowing of economic activity. The vehicles of DWCCs are still going out for the collection of dry waste twice a week. Even with no space or recycling option available, they are stocking the material.
Community Healthcare
Hasiru Dala is also aiding those who need immediate medical attention or those who are dependent on medicines. They are being provided financial assistance in procuring the medicines from designated stores. The organisation is also working to provide access to medical professionals and doctors on phone. Medication is being prescribed over the phone along with emergency medical advice. The long-term effort is going to engage in building support within the community.
Based on studies conducted in Wuhan and also by doctors around the world treating corona-affected individuals during the pandemic, it is seen that over 48% of the patients who passed away even after treatment had pre-existing medical conditions. Since people with comorbidities such as diabetes, hypertension, cardiovascular disease etc. fall under high risk categories and are more susceptible to the disease when contracted (as their immune system is already compromised), comorbidities could aggravate the rate at which the coronavirus could affect the body and hamper recovery. We need to intervene right at the beginning to reduce the fatality rate.
With our health camps on indefinite hold (they are not allowed due to the risk of infection in large gatherings) and PHC’s being converted into fever clinics, the informal workers’ communities are struggling to get basic health care facilities. People suffering from Other non-communicable diseases like diabetes and hypertension are also very cautious of going to doctors at government hospitals or PHCs for their periodic check-ups because of the risk of catching COVID accidentally. This pandemic has garnered a lot of attention and regular supply of medicines in the PHC’s are badly hit.
Hasiru Dala is empowering people from the slums to act as Community Health Facilitators for their communities. The community can reach out to this facilitator who will be someone they can trust and whom Hasiru Dala has trained to do basic health check-up – temperature, blood pressure, blood sugar, height and weight, oxygen saturation levels etc. They are connected telephonically with doctors who can help with diagnoses, triage, or quick referrals if necessary.
Education
One of the significant impacts of the lockdown has been on the children of WPs and IWC. Efforts are being made that none of their young children drops out of schools. The economic and other obstacles are one of the hurdles in their access to the online mode of education.
While the organization worked on-line sessions with children who attended the Buguri Community library during the lockdown, that gave a lot of opportunity for learning of waste picker children. Our major concern is when school starts the level of dropout will increase, especially of the girls. Hasiru Dala is now reaching out to citizens and foundations to support scholarship. An aggregation centre for material sorted from DWCCs has been started as part of post lockdown strategy as well.