COVID Relief for WEP Students and their Families

Thanks to the generosity of our donors, Women's Education Project's Covid Relief efforts have reached the families of 1,250 WEP students and alumnae, providing direct aid to 6,225 individuals across Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Tamil Nadu, and Karnataka. 

WEP-India, working closely with our NGO partners, who added resources and advised not to duplicate government aid, expanded the initial program intended for 273 WEP students’ families to 1,250.  

The WEP-India team and our NGO partners distributed food and sanitation rations for one month, before other food relief programs took effect.  Some recipients also received live poultry, kitchen garden seeds and sustainable livelihood training. 

The relief program included a virtual training program, for WEP students, alumnae and staff, covering topics crucial for navigating the pandemic: COVID-19 health and saftey information, countering disinformation, resilience building, stress management, empathetic leadership, volunteerism, safe migration and human trafficking. The course concluded with livelihood training in natural resource management.

Based on the success and positive student feedback, WEP has now incorporated program-wide courses and training programs into the WEP Leadership Academy curriculum.  

The following story, told by WEP Leadership Academy (Hyderabad) Director Esther Subhashini, is just one example of the training in action:

Three WEP students live in a village, which is about 8 km from the WEP Center. They attend a women’s degree college and are also students of WEP’s Leadership Academy. 

It was during the lockdown of 2021 when the whole country was in the turmoil of the second wave of COVID. Many sick people couldn’t go to the Government Hospital because there was no public transportation available for the villagers. The village had a Primary Health Center (PHC), but it was closed during this time. The villagers were very worried and fearful. 

During the first and second lockdowns, WEP Hyderabad started community projects using the framework of the Leadership Academy. One of the programs was called, “Essential Services for the Citizens.”  

Each girl mapped out their own colony, village, or slum, jotting down all public services like schools, markets, and health facilities. They listed important issues affecting the community and suggested how to address them.

While the three students were mapping their village and discussing some of the issues, they realized that the Public Health Center was not functioning. This was a very critical and major issue that needed to be addressed. 

They informed their mentor about this issue, who reported it to me. I gave some suggestions and advice for how to draft and distribute petitions to communicate concern to authorities. They first spoke to their families and others in the community to obtain signatures, then submitted this personally to the Sarpanch at the Gram Panchayat Office. They told him that they will send the petition to the Mandal Health Officer if action was not taken by him.

The Sarpanch promised them that he will see that the PHC opens.

And, voila! Within three days, the PHC had opened and a doctor was available for services from 9 am to 10 pm. The villagers were very happy about this work of our students and how it assisted them during a very critical time. 

Links:

• https://womenseducationproject.org/