Patna: Despite government programmes to help poor eke out a living in the pandemic situation, not all are able to reap the benefit of such facilities. Take the case of Santosh. The 30-year-old sweeper used to work in a private firm which is now closed. He is not covered under any government scheme. He had left his village to do a job in Patna where he lives in a slum. During lockdown the poor man was left to fend for himself and his family comprising his wife and three children. With no savings and nowhere to go, the future looked dark for him. In the midst of a crisis. All he could do was to pick up the garbage from a few residential apartments to make a living but the meagre payments were not enough.
But Santosh’s plight is nothing as compared to Radha’s! The 40 years old is blind and her husband had deserted her. She lives with her two teenage daughters on the pavement in front of a famous girls school in Patna, surviving on alms from school girls and their parents. With schools and colleges closed for more than 6 months her life became nothing less than a hell and she had no-one to help her.
It is not that those like Santosh or Radha, who did petty job or survived on alms today face hardship. Even small traders are today struggling to survive. Imtiaz the fisherman still rows his boat for 6 to 7 hours daily with his son to catch fishes in the river. With floods and choppy waters it is becoming more difficult to survive. His buyers were mostly evening walkers along the newly constructed Ganga Pathway but now they are scared due to COVID-19. Now, bereft of energy and motivation, most of the time Imtiaz is forced to keep his boat parked. He too, like Santosh and Radha, facedreal difficult times….till things changed for better for all of them.
Today their kitchen fire is burning during these difficult times thanks to the Bihari community of Chicago which chalked out a detailed programme to help these underprivileged and hapless people by distributing food and essential items to the lowest strata of the society in and around Patna during COVID19 pandemic. For this noble cause, they have taken the help of Patna’s amateur HAM operators who have formed a group – The Society of Radio Amateurs (SORA).
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Now every weekend a group of ham radio volunteers come together on the banks of the Ganga Ghats to implement the humanitarian program which was conceived and funded by the Bihari community of Chicago in USA. HAM operator Sumita VU2IO along with her ham radio friends first identify the most needy people, then they themselves go and distribute the aid.
Yet the story doesn’t end here. This all could not have been possible if Ananya Shahi, a school girl who lives with her parents in Chicago, had not taken the lead. Ananya’s parents have their roots in Bihar. Following her suggestion to do something for the poor and needy people of Bihar, Ananya’s mother Shivani requested the Bihari community to help raise a small fund which could meet the expenses to fund her mission. During a telephonic interview Shivani said that soon many Bihari families living in Chicago came forward to help the cause and make Ananya’s mission possible. “There are so many people who have helped in their own ways,” she said with gratitude.
“The basic purpose of the program is to identify and support people who are not getting the benefits of the government programs and have been worst affected during the pandemic,” Shivani said. So far more than 80 families have been provided rations and other essentials like soap, sanitary napkins, and face masks to help them survive the pandemic. Each packet contains ration for a family of 4 people to last about one month.
Obviously, today while Santosh is extremely elated having received this aid which is keeping his kitchen fires burning during difficult times, timely intervention has saved Radha too from many difficulties. Imtiaz too was identified by the Ham operators and when the volunteer team closed in near his parked boat he was extremely happy to receive the packet.
There are rickshaw pullers, daily wage earners, roadside sellers and others whose lives have been touched by this small intervention by the young school girl from far away Chicago and today she has all the blessings of these poor people in whose live she has brought hope and smiles with the help of her sponsors and of course the HAM operators of Patna!
– globalbihari bureau
