Funding announcement: Rapid Community Response to Covid-19 (National Coalition of 20 grassroot organisations )
As a part of its Rapid Response Funding Initiative for Covid-19, Omidyar Network India today announced a INR 1 crore funding to a collective of 20 grassroot civil society organisations for their Rapid Community Response to Covid-19 (RCRC). This funding will help the coalition work with migrant labour and their dependents in rural areas by (i) providing information (e.g. social distancing, quarantining), (ii) enumeration of and counselling migrants, (iii) supporting those at starvation risk, (iv) channeling food, (v) motivating frontline workers. They also plan actionable research to understand the impact of covid-19 in rural areas, and identify livelihood opportunities.
The organisationsinclude: 1. AKRSPIndia, 2. ABSSS, 3. Arunodaya Sansthan, 4. CARD, 5. Development Support Centre(DSC), 6. Foundation for Ecological Security (FES). 7. Goat Trust, 8. Haritika,9. Harsha Trust, 10. Ibtada 11. JanSwasthya Sahyog (JSS), 12. KeystoneFoundation 13. Manjari Foundation, 14. PEDO, 15. PRADAN 16. PRAYAS, 17. Samarthan,18. SRIJAN, 19. WASSAN, 20. Kaivalya Education Foundation (KEF).
Omidyar Network India’s Managing Director, Roopa Kudva said, “Collaboration is the need of the hour to respond to the Covid19 crisis. The civil society organizations in this collective work across 12 states, have deep rural networks and can provide strong support to government efforts.”
Speaking on behalf of the collective, Ved Arya, Founder of SRIJAN said, “I would like to profusely thank Omidiyar Network India on behalf of RCRC National Coalition for expeditiously processing the proposal. It helps us to rapidly reach the vulnerable community of migrants returning to their native homes, only to face the grim prospect of starvation and ostracization. The National Coalition has a grassroot presence in 9736 Gram Panchayats, reaching out to some 6 million vulnerable people including tribal in 100+ districts of 12 states. Augmenting the government’s admirable efforts, the National Coalition members will ensure food, cash, medicine, besides raising awareness about COVID-19 in the village community and psychological counselling. We hope to serve the people of India in this time of crisis.”
Omidyar Network India’s Rapid Response Funding Initiative is looking to deploy an aggregate total of INR 7.5 crore to fast-track innovation and address urgent needs aimed at serving the ‘Next Half Billion’ Indians. Individual proposals considered for funding are between INR 5 lakhs and 2 crore. More information on this initiative is available here.
