– Ankita

Andrew Cuomo described Coronavirus as a “great equalizer” in his twitter post , implying that anyone can be affected by this disease irrespective of caste,age,social status and gender.It is true that the virus has the same impact on health ,both for the rich and the poor, however it has differentially impacted the livelihood of individuals from low-income and ethnic minority background.This pandemic has triggered rise in unemployment and imbalance in country’s economy.

The most vulnerable and marginalised- working on streets:

On March 2020 , a country wide lockdown was implemented to tackle the spread of the virus.Millions of people belonging to lower social classes of India suffered huge loss during this lockdown.The survival became difficult for the daily wage workers, street vendors, factory workers and people with unsecured jobs.It became hard for them to buy even the basic essentials.Many migrant workers struggled to get back to their home and many of them died before reaching their villages.These people were more scared to die of hunger than to die due to a disease.

How exactly are they marginalised:

Unorganized sector workers ,agriculture labor,house servants,garbage collectors,vegetable seller etc are considered as marginalized as they have lower entitlement in the society.Due to centralised structure of economy , there is always lack of resources for such people.There are no policies or system for such communities to protect them in the times of crisis.They have lack of access and opportunity,even for the basic necessities which leads to lower levels of health,safety and education.

(AP Photo/Altaf Qadri)

How they have been helping out:

It has become extremely necessary for the country to support these marginalized communities during such hard times . Various NGOs extended their help to provide basic essentials to those in need. People were urged to support their house helps and workers during the lockdown. Food drives were initiated by residential societies for people living on streets.People who could not help ,contributed to the funds.In present times also , when our country is in a huge health crisis , many people are serving others by providing medical help to the affected patients,irrespective of their social class.

By Ahmed khatri

How we can help them:

We are hoping for this pandemic to end as soon as possible.With time,it is becoming difficult for people to survive. Number of people falling in poverty section has increased by 7.6 Crore due to COVID-19 recession. As we know that India is facing the second wave of COVID , we can surely expect complete lockdown similar to past year.Our country has not even recovered from the past year losses.But this time we can be prepared to face such situation and be proactive in helping these people.

1. 1.We can connect with the people who might need help during this time.Residential Societies can organize  planned food drives and create funds ,so that they can help more people.
2. We can support local street vendors by buying fruits and vegetables from them rather than ordering from big marts.
3. Arrangements can be made so that they can proceed with their work keeping social distancing with proper sanitization.
4. Apart from financial help ,we should educate them and spread awareness about health and safety.We can provide them masks and sanitizers.

We can find many ways to help these people who cannot afford to stay inside their homes.