COVID-19 Vaccination For Senior Citizens Now A WhatsApp Message Away, Thanks To The Robin Hood Army

Imagine if just a single WhatsApp message could help get you vaccinated. Well, if you are a senior citizen then that really is all it will take, all thanks to the Robin Hood Army. Once the senior citizens sends a WhatsApp message to the Robin Hood Army chatbot number, the volunteers or Robins, will bring them to a vaccination centre. 

The senior citizens are picked up, taken to the centre, escorted through the whole process, and then dropped home.

Sanchit Jain, Co-Founder, Robin Hood Army tells NDTV, 

WhatsApp has always been our lifeline because of all the coordination that is required, for food distribution, social media announcements and so on. Now, what we have done is that we have introduced this chatbot which makes the process of joining Robin Hood Army or putting in a request for senior patrol much simpler. We have a WhatsApp number, you just drop a text to the number and it will give you all the options. Then it asks you for all the relevant details and then the registration happens. This will also increase the number of volunteers and because of that we should be able to serve thousands more people.

There are over 1 lakh such volunteers spread out across 210 cities in India who are just one WhatsApp message away for a senior citizen who wants vaccination, or even food and medication. 

From Ajmer and Aurangabad to Silchar, Surat and Thrissur, the Robin Hood Army's WhatsApp chatbot, launched less than a month ago, has helped more than 1,200 senior citizens to get vaccinated. 

The Robin Hood Army is a zero-funds volunteer organisation that started in 2014 with the aim of collecting excess food from restaurants and the community to serve less fortunate people. 

In 7 years, the Robin Hood Army has distributed 70 million meals without raising a single rupee. 

When the lockdown started last year, along with the food distribution, the Robin Hood Army started Senior Patrol, to provide senior citizens with basic needs - medicines & groceries.

And now, Senior Patrol 2 which is seeing a higher number of sign-ups and volunteer registrations with the introduction of the WhatsApp chatbot and which helped a number of senior citizens when they needed it the most.