Impact women and families affected by COVID 19 in Pune with me

In the initial phase of lockdown, MASUM prepared a list of people to identify the woman and people who were in urgent need of ration (food kits), especially single women, migrant workers and labourers, and people who did not have ration cards. The list was shared with Block Revenue Officer and Collector of Pune, Maharashtra, with the request to provide Ration to these people on priority basis through Public Food Distribution Systems.

Later, we did a quick survey with single women of all age groups across 9 villages and collected information of 156 women regarding the impact of lockdown on their livelihood , income and overall life and coordinated with Gram Panchayat members to provide all necessary help. Given the rising number of violence cases during lockdown, MASUM team members and I trained counsellors, have provided support to more than 80 women who were in urgent need of kind of support due to domestic violence. Counsellors had provided online counselling to them and did safety planning with them.

Also, some others were provided shelter through network organiztions and help of the Police Patil and Dispute resolution committee at village which is primarily responsible to provide support to these women. Right now, activists are having personal meetings with all age group women and girls to understand the impact of lockdown on their life and their needs, so that we can plan our intervention accordingly. Especially, trying to connect with young girls to see if they had been pressured for early marriages due to poor economic conditions in the family as a result of lockdown.