Oxygen for India - amazing speed of mobilization

Ramanan's work from CDDEP is the first ray of hope i saw as i learned of the desperate gasps for breath from the motherland. This was late April and things looked grim. Today reading the story of their journey where they lit the passage to life for so many continues to be the flashing message,

Together we can get through this.

 

Not to leave with the rose-tinted glasses, at t the same time there are struggles to track a shipment of OC sitting in a dock at Mumbai customs for 10+days.

O2 Bank

 Hats off to Rajiv at Ratna Nidhi Charitable Trust for executing on the vision - Oxygen for the masses. Creative solutions that are inclusive re-invigorate hope. Thank you, RNCT for this pioneering work.

Fundraiser - help India, now!

Please help India, now! https://ratnaglobal.org/project/COVID-19-fundraiser 

In company benevity campaigns are good way to 2-3X impact. at google there are multiple campaigns - here's https://google.benevity.org/campaigns/5157

Together we can get through this!🙏🏽

India - Covid, 2nd wave

About 10 days ago, April 25, on the TSEC philanthropy call - @Karon, a good friend and inspiring leader broke down during the call. At the time she said, she was distracted by the rate of incoming messages for help.

Couple of things to note: Karon is high-bandwidth-individual as they come and with very high EQ. The high-bandwidth meant that this was not a rate of incoming that normally flustered her, but today was different. One her employees was reaching at the 11th hour for medicine money - and she didn't have it. She was in line for covid prophylactic (remdesivir) and lost the battle a day later 😔. 

Being far from home and until now mostly reassuring myself from family+friends being 'safe' - this incident brought covid-19 home to me. 

After that the mind was racing - how to help? can i help? what is even needed? who to turn to? how did this happen in India?

Result: helplessness - not from the news; a few calls to friends, some media reads and the cloud of doom seemed to thicken. 

That evening when I sat down for my daily prayer session with my parents, with the mind quietened - small steps forward emerged. Started off with a few emails, re-read social media and decided on a path forward. @Rohiniprasana agreed that we'd fund work on the ground, finding them was the next task - fast-forward with some diligence and action found charities to donate to; and resources to help people on the ground.

What started out as a linkedin post, then turned into bit.ly/help2india - a resource directory; provided an outlet for me.

Next phase : https://ratnaglobal.org/project/COVID-19-mahapeco-fundraiser Started to learn at a followup call with the TSEC philanthropy group on April 29. 

Ratna Global Foundation becomes a path to route funds for this work; Maha PECOnet, which Karon's RiseInfinity foundation belongs to mobilzed PECO net 2.0 - services needed such as Oxygen of course; in addition other needed  vaccine awareness, high rise spreaders, volunteer support to address fatigue. Learning about this, feels like actual solutions. 

So we decided to jump in both our feet, committing to support it financially and mobilize additional support. What stood out were,

• MahaPECOnet - NGOs with volunteers on the ground doing the work
• MahaPECOnet UNICEF led initiative has delivered relief for over 1MM people since Apr 2020
• Unified Emergency Response platform
• Help to Government hospitals - means service to the common man without charge
• Multi-faceted approach - awareness, education, hospital capacity, O2 [plants+concentrators], food/rations, women’s hygiene kits
• RGF: Google.org grant winner for innovative tech applications to solve for resolving handicaps

Source:

• shaivakaron@gmail.com's presentation.
• Pallavi, the hero we lost.