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Highlights Of Rebuilding Lives Telethon: A Campaign To Rehabilitate Migrant Workers Affected By Coronavirus Lockdown
Around 40 million migrant daily-waged workers have been hit hard by the lockdown imposed in the wake of COVID-19. Rebuilding Lives is an action-oriented campaign by American India Foundation (AIF) in partnership with NDTV to rebuild the lives of migrant communities. The need of the hour is for immediate relief to serve urgent needs, equal attention is required towards a sustainable and resilient rebuilding of lives through a multi-pronged response, addressing health, education and livelihoods.
Here are the highlights of the #RebuildingLives Telethon:
Manu Shah, CEO, MS International on the telethon:
A lot has to be done by India to educate and train workers, especially in rural areas and small towns. Over the years I have noticed that there has been a big shift and desire in India for white collared jobs, which means India is doing well. However, India's per capita income cannot increase unless the central and local governments, industries and skill organizations work together to improve education and training for blue-collared work. We believe that over 500 million people can be uplifted, meaningful changes can be made, and other countries can be given competition if India can become both a blue-collared and white-collared powerhouse in the world.
Around 40 million migrant daily-waged workers have been hit hard by COVID-19 induced economic distress, lockdowns, travel bans and social distancing requirements. As they reach home enduring unprecedented ordeals, they face the risk of hunger, indebtedness and prolonged unemployment.
Their families face high infection risk and their children, particularly girls, the loss of learning.
While the need of the hour is for immediate relief to serve urgent needs, equal attention is required towards a sustainable and resilient rebuilding of lives through a multi-pronged response, addressing health, education and livelihoods needs - both in the source and destination areas of migration.
This crisis has also shown us the spirit of our community. We are truly inspired by the way citizens, non-profits, corporates and the government have come together to help those in need. As first responders, American India Foundation (AIF) has served 272,000 people across 16 states of India and has now joined hands with NDTV to raise awareness and resources to complement the government’s efforts to rehabilitate migrant families.
Serve immediate and urgent needs of migrant communities, especially women and girls, with a focus on migration affected states
Emergency Relief:
- Address immediate needs of migrants through food, hygiene essentials/unconditional money transfers
Livelihoods & Income Generation:
- At least one member of a migrant household acquires a fresh skill/get upskilled and gain livelihood to increase household income
Public Health:
- Protect and train community health workers (CHW) on pandemic preparedness and using digital tools
- Support vulnerable communities in protecting themselves from Covid-19
Education:
- Bridge the educational and digital divide through techno-pedagogy and virtual learning in government schools in a Covid-safe environment
- Ensure continuity of education and remediation in community settings especially for young girls and adolescents