India Care Collective: A COVID-19 relief effort- Know how you can help

By Chitra Iyer

India Care Collective, a COVID-19 relief effort, is a group of citizens with a proven background of social service, who are working together to help families impacted because of wage loss situations arising due to the coronavirus pandemic.

It is an initiative to help those who lost their job or are facing wage loss due to a coronavirus pandemic on a monthly basis for food and other basic requirements.

The initiative is ‘pan-India’, wishes to ‘care’ for those impacted and is a ‘collective’ or cooperative made up of citizens who are doing this in their spare time. We don’t charge the donors for our time or effort.

This is how it works:

• We reach out to donors and ask them to NOT donate to us but commit an amount if we could assure them of the authenticity of the beneficiaries.
• Through a large network of NGOs, citizens, Government officials, we register beneficiaries asking for personal references.
• Two level checks happen – The referring person certifies that s/he knows the beneficiary personally and that the person needs support. Our team calls the referee and also the beneficiary to verify the requirement.
• Once satisfied, we prepare a small note containing the name of the beneficiary, her life story, how much support is required and bank details.
• This note is sent to the donor to make a direct transfer to beneficiaries.
• Although this is an effort intensive operation, there are three advantages to donors-
• Zero overhead costs. Every single pie goes to beneficiaries.
• No trust deficit with a middleman. We don’t ask you to transfer funds to us so you know there is no opportunity for anyone to misuse the funds.
• Donors and Beneficiaries get to know each other personally and build a lasting relationship where further transfers happen between them without needing us.

How would you identify and verify Beneficiaries?

• The identity of the person who is recommending such cases will be captured. The cases undertaken have to be those who the recommend-er knows personally or has spoken with. Self recommendations are not encouraged.
• The team will be contacting both beneficiaries and recommenders to establish authenticity and avoid false positives.
• We will rely on reference-based beneficiary identification as a primary tool. Because of repeated beneficiaries and false positives, we may go wrong 10-20% of times but this is to ensure all needy get the help.

Why is this initiative required?

According to The International Labour Organization ( ILO ), about 25 million jobs could be lost globally due to coronavirus and the National Labour institute survey stats that casual labor makes up 14.7 percent of all workers when classified by category of employment in urban areas. Self – employed workers make up 38.3 percent while 47 percent are regular wage/salary workers. Most workers who are self-employed are ‘own account’ workers. Such workers along with the casual workers provide service on a daily basis and are likely to hit hard in a scenario where economic activity dips sharply.

Rashid Ali, 49 has been coming to Mayur Vihar labor chowk, looking for work, for over 14 years now. “There is no work. Nobody is coming to hire us these days,” he says. Waiting in a crowd, he is concerned about getting infected by the virus. But his greater worry is how to take care of his family — his wife and their three young children. “I don’t know how I will feed them. I have no money,” he says.

Fragile MSMEs are already hit rock-solid because of demonetization, GST and NBFC crises, COVID -19 will create a long-lasting economic impact and a majority of workers in this sector have no access to formal finance hampering their day to day basic requirements which are essential in this pandemic situation.

The crisis has already transformed into an economic and labor market shock, impacting not only supply ( production of goods and services ) but also demand ( consumption and investment ). Initial ILO estimates point out to a significant rise in underemployment as well which is likely to translate to a significant downward adjustment to wages and working hours. Households that are dependent on daily wages are facing an unprecedented economic crisis.

How to contribute?

• Direct Donation: Plz fill the below response form and the team will connect with you. We will not ask you to transfer the funds to us. We will send you a verified list of beneficiaries with all details like name, their story, the amount of transfer and also the bank details.https://forms.gle/3o8K6Hqhmp1aWJuE8

• Donate through GIVE INDIA: https://fundraisers.giveindia.org/campaigns/india-care-collective

FAQs

• I know you want me to transfer the funds directly to beneficiaries but I may not have the bandwidth to do that. I trust your work. Is there a way out?
  In rare cases when the donors insist that they do not want to transfer funds to beneficiaries themselves, we have an organization that can collect their funds, utilize in the same manner as above. The details are provided on case to case basis. However, note we do not prefer this route. PLEASE DO MENTION IN THE REMARKS COLUMN OF THE REGISTRATION FORM THAT YOU WOULD LIKE TO MAKE THE TRANSFER TO US AND WE WILL GET IN TOUCH. DO NOTE THAT THE SAID NGO DOES NOT HAVE 80G SO YOU MAY NOT BE ABLE TO GET TAX EXEMPTION.
• Will I get tax exemption ?
  Because there is no NGO involved, you will not get 80G exemption. Most donors are telling us that they don’t care much about 80G at this stage.

• How will this help me ?
  In addition to earning some good karma points, what better way to galvanize the community than bringing it together in the times of crisis.

• Can I make a one-time donation ?
  Yes, you are welcome to but many people are likely going to need support for 3 months.

• Why don’t we just provide beneficiaries with food (perhaps partnering with Akshaya Patra and other NGOs)?
  As we are in second stage of this pandemic , doing anything in community setting is not a good idea.

Core team behind the initiative:

Abhishek Gupta  https://www.linkedin.com/in/abhishekguptak/

• Indian School of Business Alumnus. 12 years of social sector work. Presently Advisor to Dy Chief Minister Delhi Govt on higher education and VET

Chitra Iyer  : https://www.linkedin.com/in/chitraiyer3107/

• TISS Alumna. Social Entrepreneur. Founder Space2 Grow LLP (Child Protection, Livelihoods and Inclusive skilling specialist)

Himanshu Sharma  https://www.linkedin.com/in/himanshusharma16/

• BITS Pilani Alumni,  pro bono consultant to NGOs with IVounteer, working as a research fellow with Delhi assembly research center. 

Rajen Makhijani : https://www.linkedin.com/in/rajen-makhijani-7b28572/

• IIM alumnus, ex McKinsey, ex-Country Director, UChicago’s Tata Centre, CEO Coach, Founder/Anchor, Leadership by results. Rashi Soman : https://www.linkedin.com/in/rashisoman/

• ISB and Delhi School of Economics Alumnus. Works with v-shesh Learning Service Pvt Ltd , an impact enterprise that prepares job seekers with opportunities and organizations with disability inclusion

 To know more visit: www.indiacarecollective.org