Identifying target communities: Our focus was on identifying vulnerable individuals/communities such as daily wage earners, migrant workers and waste pickers, especially those who do not have access to social security or government schemes/systems.
Our Support: In most cases, the need was for immediate food relief (cooked meals or dry rations) and basic hygiene/sanitary products (soaps, sanitizers, masks, sanitary pads, etc.)
Implementation: The aid was delivered in 4 ways:
- Directly by Wipro: We activated our kitchens in our Kodathi (Bangalore), Kolkata, Pune campuses and at many other locations from April 2020 onwards. Together the kitchens had supplied over 3 million meals for 255,000 people between April 2020 to August 2020. In Bangalore, we tied up with BBMP, to expedite the distribution of the cooked meals to the neediest – including frontline health staff, relatives of patients admitted to large government hospitals, and on-duty policemen, whose options are limited due to the ensuing lockdown.
- Through Our Partners: We have funded about 250 NGOs, working in 349 districts across 22 states, to provide food and/or sanitation kits to the most disadvantaged. A kit typically contains dry ration and/or sanitary products for a family of 5-6, for 2-4 weeks (depending on when the government support is expected to take place in that district). We also worked with our contractors, such as L&T, to ensure food availability for workers at our construction sites throughout the lockdown period.
- Through Field Institutes: Our Field Teams, spread over 50 districts in 6 states and 1 UT, have been mobilized to work closely with, and support the district administration. The administration usually helps us identify the most vulnerable communities/areas in the region. These groups and communities are those that typically fall outside the government support system – such as people with no ration cards. They also need humanitarian aid the most. Our field teams are helping to procure and supply requirements in close collaboration with the local police and development officers.
- Crisis Support Network: A large team consisting of alumni of Azim Premji University, with support from the university staff, had set up a Crisis Support Network, for migrant workers (and others) who were in need of aid due to the Covid-19 crisis. The network leveraged a database of all relief services that were available in different geographies, to make it easier to connect individuals who require support, with these services (both public and private, such as those provided by our partner NGOs).