Derive Happiness from helping the Covid hit underprivileged.

During these hard Covid pandemic times SPPD has been carrying out interventions towards mitigating the sufferings of the most deserving communities in various districts of state of Tamil Nadu. The members of the families of workers belonging to the unorganized sectors such as daily wagers and small and marginalized farmers form part of our target communities.

The impacts of Covid pandemic and lockdown on various sections of the society are explained here.

Children

The families in our working areas have lost their livelihoods due to the lockdowns and other protocols necessitated by the pandemic conditions. The suffering being undergone by the children of these families has been enormous. The schools remain closed for nearly two years except for brief periods and immediate re-closures. Now the online classes have become the order of the day introducing a totally new concept to the children of the already extremely under privileged sections.

Hardly very few families possess the smart phones laptops and computers etc through which only the online classes are conducted by the schools, colleges and other educational institutions. This has pushed many a children to drop out and become as child laborers to compensate for the loss of income of adults in the families during pandemic. The practice of getting the minor girl children married off also has been on the rise.

Women

In fact, the women empowerment process too which was gaining pace in our working villages in the recent years had come to a sudden halt due to the terrible onslaught of the covid pandemic.

The micro credit was instrumental in hastening women empowerment in a big way but the pandemic induced loss of livelihood has dealt a big blow.

Small and Marginal Farmers

Similarly, the small and marginal farmers who form the vast majority in our working areas have been facing the impacts of economic slowdown all around. There has been substantial fall in demand for the produce coupled with soaring cost of agricultural inputs and other farming costs have been hurting the farmers badly.

The cessation of public transportation due to frequent lockdowns both cargo movement and commutation by the people belonging to the marginal sections here have been badly hit.

SPPD in Covid Relief

And SPPD has been involved in immediate relief interventions for the families of the unorganized workers such as hawkers, small and marginal farmers, the women in general to cope with Corona caused economic fallouts. Such immediate relief has enabled these marginalized and resource poor communities to a great extent. But with the pandemic situation prolonging they are badly in need of support systems by way of credits. But post covid, the financial institutions have almost stopped lending assistance to such sections due to the high unpredictability of the return of loans.