The Delta variant – crisis and hope

A few months ago, we reported that the Coronavirus Delta variant was spreading into rural areas in India and Bangladesh – to communities we have supported for years. Villages that were once isolated and protected from the virus last year have now been severely affected.

Official data could never capture the full picture of what these communities have been going through. Testing centres are often many miles away and stretched far beyond their capacity. Even when farmers can reach them, there is no guarantee of a successful test.

While we can’t share every story of hardship and every way that we’ve responded to the crisis over the past few months, below we’ve gathered a selection of stories and initiatives to give you an idea of what has been going on.

India

In May and June of this year, we saw more and more people struggling to get their families and friends to hospitals, to get access to oxygen. It was a critical situation.

In Kapas Hera, Delhi and nearby areas, we’ve been supporting two local NGOs: Ideal Youth for Revolutionary Changes and Community for Social Change and Development to get vital food and resources to those who need it most. In addition to ration kits, our local partners also distributed soaps and menstrual hygiene products.

In Jharkhand, India our aim has been to promote improved health and hygiene practices such as handwashing, mask wearing and distancing to prevent the spread of Covid-19. We are also creating awareness on vaccination and helping senior citizens in getting vaccinated. Much thanks here goes to our partners at Oak Foundation, Badlao Foundation and Sathee.

Bangladesh

Although Bangladesh has been further from mainstream news than India, the coronavirus situation has been just as severe. Our project teams recently reported that out of every ten houses they visit, five are dealing with symptoms or Covid-19.

While many of our project activities have had to pause at various times since the coronavirus pandemic first hit Bangladesh, the impact of our work – and the strength of those we work with has continued to shine through.

Strength in crisis

In normal harvest seasons, farmers hire labourers who travel from neighbouring districts to harvest their paddy.  But with the pandemic restricting travel, hiring labourers was not an option. The shortage in availability of labour meant that, even where it was available, smallholder farmers across the country simply couldn’t afford to pay those rates. 

The situation was bleak – a season’s worth of hard work facing potential ruin.

For the villagers of Pashchim Taldgighi – a community that has worked with Traidcraft Exchange for many years – things were different. They had a simple, but ingenious solution that took advantage of one thing the pandemic couldn’t dent: their togetherness.

They took the decision that every group member would work on everyone’s land, harvesting the paddy in turns. They started harvesting on 5th May and were finished within 3 days.

Grassroots self-help groups participating in our projects have also been able to distribute £55,000 in emergency loans to date to their poorest members – with no fixed repayment period or interest charged.

They made announcements via loudspeaker to raise awareness of safety measures to reduce the spread of Covid-19. The associations also disinfected offices and market areas and distributed health and hygiene leaflets amongst the district’s villages.

For most of this period, our official work was paused because of the restrictions – but that meant that solutions could rise up from the grassroots networks that we’ve helped develop. It’s so encouraging to see the strength of local communities coming to the fore and solving problems in a time of crisis.

This is the sort of potential that your support helps to unlock: long-lasting, resilient and powerful grassroots communities, supporting each other in times of difficulty.

What now?

There is still a long way to go to protect communities from the pandemic. There will likely be further setbacks.

But as the world slowly recovers from the health impacts of this virus, we must turn our attention to the long-term economic impacts of COVID-19.

Those with the least resources, have suffered the most. Recovery for the communities we work with will be a long road to walk, and together as a global community we must support them every step of the way.

We’re working on plans to strengthen this recovery journey and we’ll share more soon. But for now we wanted to bring you into this crisis so that you can see the seriousness of what has been happening.

But also so you can see the strength of the communities we support – and realise that together we can start to work towards a better future.