Covid Relief in South India

When the 2nd wave of COVID hit India and India went into a full lockdown, I heard from many of my artists how bad it was affecting India. India's rural communities lacked adequate aid. Farmers who would regularly work in the fields to earn their daily food were unable to work and thus unable to feed themselves. The people of South India were desperate for any help they could receive.

I had been brainstorming with my good friend and Lotus Sculpture stone artist, Balan, on what we can do to help. Balan, who lives in Mahaballipuram in Tamil Nadu, India, toured local villages to speak with the people and see what families need. Two of those stories are below and I encourage you to read them and hear first hand how the lockdown was affecting the most needy.

We came up with a plan to distribute an everyday staple that families need; 25 kilogram bags of rice. Balan had focused on the villages around where he lives in Mamallapuram by contacting village leaders and asking them to give names of families who have the most need. These are mostly agrarian families who live day to day earning their living by working in the fields for their daily needs. With a full lockdown in place, they are unable to work and are going hungry. We are targeting only the neediest of the needy, those who are truly hungry in this awful time. We made the decision to donate 25kg rice bags because rice is the central staple of the Indian diet and can easily feed a family for up to 3 weeks.

Our plan was for Lotus Sculpture to raise funds from our customers who wanted to help. On May 22 nd we started accepting donations. We wanted to help people for as long as the lockdown was in place and people were not able to work to feed themselves.

Balan was to contact local leaders and compile lists of the poorest families. Balan would check these lists to make sure only the extremely poor would be receiving the rice often visiting the families to check their situation. Our goal was to give the rice only to the poorest of the poor who hand no other way of feeding themselves. Many of these families had nothing but water in their kitchens and were going hungry.

Donations

After the tsunami I raised money to buy fishing nets for local villages who lost everything. I raised around $3000. I expected that we would raise more than that but I was total caught off guard by the amount of generosity shown by our customers.

In total we have raised $48,906 from customers and given $8,338 of my own money for a total of $57,244.

We donated 4,180 25kg bags of rice. This means that 4,180 families received enough rice to eat for about 3 weeks.

The aid was distributed to 63 of the poorest villages, many of whom are not even on maps. From May 23rd to June 12th when the lockdown was lifted. The villages were in the Chengalpattu district, Vilupuram district and around Pondicherry in Tamil Nadu.

Here is a list of the villages: