IndiaShield: Citizens Led Efforts Connecting People With Verified Resources On COVID-19

IndiaShield began with the aim of providing quality COVID emergency support and services at a time when misinformation and unverified leads and resources were floating around on social media. When IndiaShield joined hands with WhatsApp, they created what they call ‘India's largest citizen led community platform' that has helped solve more than 48,000 COVID related queries.

IndiaShield went from being an information provider to an emergency help provider when founder Yashraj Akashi realised that with emergencies piling up, verified numbers would go dead within minutes. Yashraj tells NDTV,

We replaced the technology and added the human touch to it. It was through WhatsApp that we were able to go from one group of 12 people to thousands of people who could join different groups. On an average we were solving 4,000 cases a day at one time. We had support groups for mental health, we had support groups to get medicine, we had support groups to get hospital beds, we had region wise support groups on WhatsApp. All of this required just one tool, and that was WhatsApp.

Manasvi Shah, the Founder of The House Of Diamonds and a volunteer with IndiaShield's days are very busy, managing the house, looking after her 6-year-old, and running her business from home. But she still has the time to devote to what has now become a calling for her, volunteering with IndiaShield, connecting COVID patients to the resources they need.

It all began for Manasvi when she helped a friend find medicine for his COVID positive parents. From helping one person, she went to helping hundreds in a day, all through IndiaShield's WhatsApp support group. And she didn't stop even when her own parents tested positive. Manasvi tells NDTV, 

When you're trying to solve a case, you kind of get attached to it. And you're trying and trying and trying. But you have to go on, you cannot stop. It's not just one person, there were cases after cases after cases. If I got up in the morning, I had 500 cases in hand. So then what do you do? You just keep doing it, keep doing it.

This army of close to 500 volunteers, spread across 150 cities, worked through the worst of the second wave in India, helping almost 50,000 people find the emergency resource that they needed.

IndiaShield is now providing vaccination support as well, and the plan is to build one single national platform for all social and health related emergencies.