On May 6, 2021, Development and Peace — Caritas Canada launched an urgent appeal to help our partners respond to the COVID-19 emergency in India and the Indian subcontinent. As always, our members and supporters responded with immense solidarity and generosity. By May 31, 2021, we had raised over $110,000.
This money will allow Development and Peace to support our partners’ relief efforts not only in India, but also in Nepal, where the COVID-19 pandemic is having disastrous but underreported effects.
In India, our support will help Caritas India to:
- Establish a First-Level Treatment Centre with 20 beds to deliver primary care to at least 200 patients.
- Establish two Information and Sharing Centres to raise awareness and provide information on services available. It is estimated that 4,000 people will be supported with vaccine registration through these centres.
- Provide frontline health workers with 100 medical kits for COVID-19 patients in home quarantine or isolation. The kits include N-95 masks, hand sanitizer and other health supplies.
In Nepal, our support will help Caritas Nepal to:
- Distribute oxygen cylinders, oxygen concentrators and personal protective equipment to health facilities.
- Distribute home isolation kits to help families to safely care for loved ones with mild cases of COVID-19.
- Expand and rehabilitate existing isolation centres and construct new isolation centres.
- Deliver COVID-19 messaging on local radio in zones targeted by the project.
- Provide risk mitigation messages and other approved COVID-19 information via telephone helplines.
Given the scale and spread of the pandemic across many parts of the Global South, we know that other regions will need to be similarly supported. Therefore, all donations made to our COVID-19 Emergency Fund from June 1, 2021, will be deployed wherever the need is greatest. This will notably include Brazil, where over 472,000 people have died because of COVID-19. On behalf our partners and the people they serve, we thank you from the bottom of our hearts for your solidarity. Your generosity is deeply appreciated and continues to be needed.
