COVID Second surge has become very hardest to save lives in the state Odisha.  Identified positive patients are more than expected & death tolls also are increasing unprecedented. There has dire need of tracking tracing, treatment followed by vaccine readiness, psychosocial counselling for home isolation, quarantine, immunity boosting.  Entry of Black Fungus detected & created panic.  Third surge will be more violent as reported.  Details can be obtained from authentic sources as official websites of WHO and MOHFW  India.

In Odisha, COVID-19 & climate crisis both are rapidly producing further disaster to become more complex and deadly, all are affected but poor communities are impacting a lot. Since  The Indian State of Odisha, considered as one of the backward states in  human development index, has been grossly impacted by COVID-19 & recurrent climate crisis it needs multi-stakeholders engagement multiple head  & hands. Further, COVID is a multiple pandemic there has a greater need of collaboration, partnership to bring immediate humanitarian response and to minimize spread & maximize our readiness for mass vaccination.  

Everyone is affected, but not everyone is affected equally.  Now youth mass is getting affected . The elderly, people living with disabilities, migrant workers and the poor, farmers, slum dwellers are most vulnerable  especially women children youth & PwD.  Since COVID-19  needs  a long term  action , there has a greater attention to Save Lives, Restore Livelihoods for immunity boosting . The core message – “Prevention saves lives” – will be linked to other key messages about systemic risk and cascading disasters and protection of the dignity of resource poor women, children, PwD,old age and orphans is essential . This is high time to provide a humanitarian response along with short & long term support  to recover soon from pandemic and build forward better &  to enhance immunity  boosting in   integrating with cross ector WASH , Education, Economies for streghtening health infrastructure.  

Further building capacities & strengthening  of communitites on  adaptation capability  is important & building social, cultural, natural, ecological and economical capital is essential in order to  improve wellbeing  & to address the next development challenges of achieving SDGS . It is equally important to minimizing   climate  crisis vulnerabilities &  maximizing  disaster risk informed resilent development  as global solidarity is crucial to leave no one behind.

Government is trying hard to maximizing the tracing/treatment. CSOs also to the best of their ability are playing catalytic role in their respective areas maximizing to make community awareness of various COVID Appropriate Behaviour Protocols   even without any financial support as all are with community. The COVID Action Collab - SWASTI has agreed to collaborate with us for technical support (Non-financial Association letter attached) to trigger campaign on Community Based Preparedness COVID Vaccine Readiness & Response, Social Protection.  To facilitate training and capacity building especially in the area of Psychosocial care to all frontline workers is with the help of NIMHANS ( National Institute of Mental Health and Nero Science). Eengagement of  local Partner NGOs  in Community Based Covid Preparedness) campaign  has strengthened the network   force in extending support to local administration as  it is one of the add  on activities  in  community development .

The solution lies in prevention followed by protection and provision – increasing readiness to address the coronavirus disease and reducing the impacts of future climate risks , disasters. Looking at COVID-19-2  and current vulnerabilities, there is a dire demand to promote resilient communities that can cope with the forthcoming climate crisis , minimize health hazards. There has a pressing need to the rebuilding of economies with the #COVID19 Crisis & beyond , a unique opportunity to transform the food systems for local benefits & make it resilient integrating with WASH, Nutrition & Education to minimize the future shocks, ensuring environmentally sustainable and healthy nutrition to support health system for all.

This high time  to undertake massive social protection measures,  engaging multiple stakeholders  in a mission mode. This mission needs  stronger campaign & advocacy for influencing policy  for practice & program integration convergence& compassion in meeting present need and contribute to address demands of communities in long run. That   will be carried with  deeper collaboration with mainstream  health care system & district   administrations, PRIs  & community  

To enable this, there is an urgent need for more funds.: Cash Support for purchasing essentials,   Covid Care packages, Tele care support,  setting up health infrastructures  to address  COVID-19 and climate change crisis. The following interventions are needed now & beyond COVID-19 for returned migrants, work labours, women, children, disabilities, wage earners daily labourers, slum dwellers to address hunger, immunity boosting to  save lives & support the rebuilding of livelihoods.

I) Social response & humanitarian aid  to support unorganised migrants, wage labours on COVID19 Pandemic:  Actions include the provision of food & nutrition kits, CAB kits including digital thermometers, school/learning kits for children, preventive/protective kit for front line workers, & Micro-Nutrient & mineral-Kit ), Oximeters, Oxygen Regulators, Oxygen concentrators/cylinders to support hospitals &  micro-nutrition supplements/ health boosters, Farmers seed kit , setting up call centres and enabling area sanitization as people matters.

II)  Accelerate Social Protection initiatives in Building Community Assets & Promotion of Natural Resource Regeneration an  integrated resilient livelihood models that can promote food and water security, nature based solutions to nutrition, local biodiversity conservation, circular economy, green energy & sustainable food system as part of innovation as development  needs.

III) Creating an enabling environment & setting up an institutional process for learning, management and sustainability that includes Community institution building, knowledge transformation, scaling up, call centres (Resource Hubs) & ICT, employable skill-building and social enterprises for revenue generation as  a catalysing process.

This COVID-19 Pandemic crisis presents us with a huge opportunity to rethink the way we work, educate our children, and even our cultural customs, and to realign these towards social, economic, environmental sustainability at local level to address global issues. This pandemic requires new ways of working strategy and innovative partnerships to ensure interventions  to support efforts to prevent transmission, promote positive transformation where the impact will be greatest, and ensure that efforts to combat COVID & the climate crisis as  people first. Certainly, these contributions will add value to achieving the SDGs & sustainability more broadly.   

Your small or big contribution  important but it matters for saving  lives  now & future generations to combat COVID & climate crisis . Please be generous  to donate and share it to be part of  Readiness , Response, Resilience & Recovery and we  look  forward .

Target community :  One lakh fifty thousand  Families comprising Wage workers, Resource poor in  tribal  districts of Odisha