An urgent call for help

We’re raising funds for the second wave of Covid.

Dear reader,

The last few months, especially the last one month, have been emotionally draining for the best of us, and I guess that I haven’t been able to live up to all my internal promises of getting back to writing. It didn’t help that we also had teething problems while trying to expand our team.

In the midst of all this, one small consolation that I had was that I finally had a day job where I could dedicate myself to working on environmental problems (the NGO is called Environment Support Group, Bengaluru or just ESG, you can check out their work here). My learning curve over the last few months has been wonderfully steep (side note: You might want to check out ESG’s biweekly newsletter called Environment Justice Matters that discusses issues on climate, environment, law and society, and public health. We also launched a climate action plan discussion webinar for Bengaluru last month, it had almost concluded before the second wave wreaked its havoc. If you want to know more about it, please feel free to write back).

At ESG, we’ve really been working hard to do our bit to help communities that have been badly affected by Covid. We have reached out to people we’ve worked with over the years on a range of campaigns related to lake and grassland protection, tree felling, and so on, and we’ve got a lot of worrying feedback. Street vendors are dying of Covid in Bangalore’s iconic Gandhi Bazaar, but are still being forced to vend on the streets whenever possible because they’ve run out of money due to the lockdown. Migrant workers living near the landfill of Mavallipura on the outskirts of Bangalore are left without work and money to fend for themselves. A couple of days ago, we managed to supply a week’s worth of rations to a few families in the lakeside slums near Subramanyapura, Bangalore who had run out of funds completely.

There are a lot of people that ESG can help—scores, if not hundreds of families. But we don’t have enough funds to help everyone right now. We’ve been trying to raise money as quickly as possible to help these families meet their basic needs. I wanted to reach out to as many people as I could to spread news of this initiative, and I thought that you would appreciate an opportunity to help fund a cause that is vouched for and organised by someone you know and trust.

You can find more details about ESG’s Covid relief efforts here (foreign donors are especially requested to check out this link, for details of the designated account where we receive international funds). I hope I can persuade some of you to contribute generously to the cause.

Love,

Malvika