APPEAL FOR CONTRIBUTION TO FUND FOR COVID IMPACTED FRONTLINE WORKERS IN CIVIL SOCIETY

Dear Friends,

As you are aware, Covid 19 has taken a toll on almost every segment of Indian society. The second wave saw close to 200K deaths that were officially recorded. The total number of deaths is estimated to be between five to forty-five times of the official death toll depending on the State. Throughout the pandemic in India, civil society has played a lead role in every aspect of the mitigation of distress, stepping in where State failure was glaring. From supporting migrant workers in the wake of the suddenly announced lockdown in the first phase to sourcing hospital beds, oxygen cylinders and drugs when the second wave hit India.

There has been no formal recognition of the NGO workers as frontline workers. Consequently, they were not provided protective gear or priority in vaccination by the government (at the Union or state level), let alone get coverage under any ex-gratia compensation scheme for frontline workers. This includes large number of organizations working in the health care sector. At the institutional level, the vast majority of frontline workers of NGO do not enjoy basic level of social protection that most people in formal sector unemployment would. In many cases, they have the same social protection standards of the people whose rights they defend. They depend on the same broken medical system at the village and grassroots level that they struggle to improve for the people they work with. This is in part due to the increasing uncertainty of funding in the NGO sector, the casualization of labour including in the sector and the non-availability of donor funding for building in adequate social protection measures for staff.
It is in this context that more than a hundred sector leaders were convened by Dr.Rajesh Tandon to think through the creation of a Civil Society Fund to help frontline workers and other NGO staff who have lost their lives in the past year and half. The National Foundation for India was entrusted with the responsibility of raising funds and managing this fund. The objectives of the fund are three-fold:

• Provide an ex-gratia compensation of Rs.1 lakh to each bereaved family.

• Compensate medical expenses for Covid cases of frontline workers who have been crippled by the medical expenses.

• Create a scheme in the longer term, for term / health insurance for all frontline workers working in the NGO sector who do not have access to any social protection program.

Proposed contribution from the organizations. This is an indicative lower ceiling number, and we would welcome higher contribution