In early April, very shortly after lockdown on March 23, we began to look for ways to continue work in rural villages of Mewat. The Kaman block was a total lock down due to the fact some people suspected of having Covid19 had visited and stayed in some of the villages in our work area, we knew there would be no scope for any kind of community meetings. There were no officials sitting in Government offices that could help us to coordinate across 150 villages spanning the entire Kaman block of Bharatpur District in Rajasthan where our ASHA program operates so we had to plan accordingly.
We contacted our partners at Lotus Outreach and they kindly offered to partner WLT through their LORelief fund and which enabled us to purchase 22,500 bars of soap and 5000 masks. Trying any and every means we were finally able to deliver all of that to Shekhawat, our ASHA program field officer. He very bravely and even in view of road blocks and police barricades, began distribution using his motorbike and assistance from a friend. It was slow to begin and then as things opened up, Shekhawat hired a tempo and driver and we were able to complete distribution to almost 1000 first line health workers in 150 villages by middle of June.