Volunteers lead awareness and support initiatives in villages

Aid India is now creating awareness of vaccination and facilitating inoculation camps

An extensive network of volunteers, working in coordination with primary health centres and government hospitals, has enabled Aid India, an NGO, to carry out COVID-19 relief work in 484 villages across Tamil Nadu. The NGO is now focussing on creating awareness of vaccination and facilitating inoculation camps. While Aid India had worked on welfare initiatives during the first wave, its efforts gathered pace during the second wave, its founder Balaji Sampath said. The organisation concentrated its efforts on villages where it has started education initiatives. Besides volunteers associated with the organisation in each village, several others joined it. “Through our volunteers, we first worked on providing rations to families whose one member had tested positive. Many of them are daily wage labourers, and having to stay at home would impact their livelihood,” Mr. Sampath said. Another area of attention was ensuring transport between remote villages and the nearest hospitals or primary health centres. “For each block we worked at, one vehicle and a driver from the area were engaged for COVID-19-related emergencies,” he said.