Covid-19 in India

You have probably seen in the news that India is experiencing a massive second surge of Covid-19. The reported death toll has passed 200,000. New cases have broken the world record several days in a row, with 360,960 in the past 24 hours reported this morning (Wednesday 28 April). Hospitals are overwhelmed.

Several countries around the world are sending medical aid to India.

Our partners in the country are telling us how desperate the situation is and what they are doing to help. Several people we know there are unwell, some of them quite seriously so.

Meanwhile some of the work we support has been unable to carry on as normal. But while the teachers in the slum schools and the team of health workers are not able to work as usual, they are helping with a vital programme to feed poor people. We have mentioned before that with the pandemic bringing a lot of economic activity to a halt, families who rely on casual work have no employment and no income to support themselves. The church we work with has been distributing food to families in slum areas – in some parts they can provide cooked meals, and in others where they don’t have the facilities for that they are distributing basic ingredients that families can cook for themselves.

We have been sending out funds to help with the cost of this and we will send some more in the middle of May. If you would like to help, could you make a donation towards this? You can give to us through an online bank transfer, through PayPal, through Virgin Money Giving or through CAF (Charities Aid Foundation). Details are on the How to Give page.

Our partners have reported that from when they began doing this last year, up to 15 April this year, they had provided 166,400 meals in NW Delhi. They have also distributed over 108,300 packages of dry ingredients in E Delhi. That’s nearly 275,000 meals in total.

Recently a curfew stopped this feeding programme for four days. Now there is just a weekend curfew, and they have been out distributing food again. They found that many of the people they helped had not eaten at all during the curfew.

Thanks for your support.