HYDERABAD: It hasn’t been very long since Twitter and Instagram were flooded with SOS messages during the second wave of the Covid-19 pandemic. The unprecedented health crisis in the country humbled the best of us and brought out the bravest in the quietest of us. Some Good Samaritans went beyond their own selves, their homes and even their city to serve those in need.
Thanking them for their services and patting them for the same, the Telangana Social Impact Group (TSIG), the CSR cell of the Telangana government, organised the ‘T-SIG Covid-19 Warriors Event’ at HICC. The event recognised people, who extended Covid-19 relief to those affected in 2020-2021.
The event was attended by IT Minister KT Rama Rao, IT Principal Secretary Jayesh Ranjan and actor-philanthropist Sonu Sood, who honoured 12 corporates, 26 NGOs, 29 individuals, and six enablers in-person. Nearly 850 entities and individuals were also acknowledged through e-certificates.
CE spoke to a few of the recipients of the awards. Rubina Nafees Fatima, founder-director of Safa Foundation at Banjara Hills, said, “Honestly, Covid isn’t over yet. After surviving the first and second waves, it’s now time to rebuild livelihoods of several families, especially women. That is something we have been striving to do from Day 1 and will continue to do so.”
The organisation had helped thousands of families survive through the pandemic. Their food kits, women volunteers manning the kitchen to feed the hungry, making and selling of five lakh masks that gave employment to many women, are some of the many reasons the organsation deserved the government’s appreciation.
Aiming to give to society through the use of technology is one of India’s first technology-driven NGO Social Data Initiative Forum. Founder of the Hyderabad-based forum, Khalid Safiullah, spoke to CE about the team’s efforts during the hard times of the pandemic. “Two of the many measures we’ve taken up include the founding of the Free Rations app, which supplied free ration to those in need. All we did was find the closest general store to the person’s place, pay them, and have them collect their essentials.
Our other app, Free Oxygen, supplies what it promises. We would run a keyword search on Twitter for ‘oxygen’, find if the tweet had a 10 digit phone number and call up the number to ask how we could help. We were able to help thousands across the country.” The government specifically lauded the team’s efforts for reaching out to people in the remotest of villages.
May we never forget the services of the ones that went out of their way to help strangers in the face of trouble and death, and inspired many others to do the same.