Fight Hunger, Fight Corona

«Let’s all be hummingbirds…Let’s do the best we can, however little it is…and save the burning forest», says Nobel Peace Laureate Professor Wangari Maathai, in The Story of The Hummingbird

Together, we started like hummingbirds with a personal spark of idealism, and within 30 days, we grew and scaled into a team of 8 in Europe and forged partnerships with 19 NGOs across India. We have been able to:

1. deliver food ration kits to 11,000 people,
2. establish 6 community kitchens serving 14,000 meals daily, and
3. operate in 23 towns across India.

Today is the 1st of May, International Worker’s Day. Millions of daily-wage workers remain stranded and hungry, with no source of income and no way to go to their homes, as the world’s largest national lockdown continues.

We cannot and must not lose hope. We continue to not just be hummingbirds, but warriors! We are building deeper and stronger relationships with our communities and NGOs to build a resilient future together. Our fight extends much beyond this lockdown, striving towards social and environmental justice.

Join us at: www.humanewarriors.ch

«Do not be daunted by the enormity of the world’s grief. Do justly, now. Love mercy, now. Walk humbly, now. You are not obliged to complete the work, but neither are you free to abandon it.» interpreted from the Talmud

Thank you once again, for your support and inspiration,

Naveen and Rhythima, www.humanewarriors.ch

Dear Friends,

Due to a bug in the wemakeit mailing list, we apologize that our news update from last week has only reached you today. We are proud and honored to announce that thanks to our combined efforts, we have,

• supplied 20,000 people & children with food and sanitary kits across 20 towns & villages.
• started 4 community kitchens (2 in Delhi, 1 in Pune, 1 in Aurangabad) serving 1000’s of meals daily.
• developed a post-corona strategy for sustainable livelihood projects.

Our campaign ends in just 5 days and we need to raise 15,000 CHF more!

We have requests from NGOs and volunteers to support an additional 15,000 people in urgent need, and we have developed a strategy to build a sustainable livelihood project for one of our communities.

We really need your help! Could you,

• Write an email or message to your family and friends about this project?
• Share our campaign with your co-workers, with your club or verein?
• Do you know someone at a media outlet? We have written a few articles (https://tinyurl.com/india-newsarticles) and have appeared on a few media outlets. Could you give us a voice through a media outlet that you know?

We would very much welcome another donation from your side. Thank you for your unconditional support.

Our project documentation is available at: www.tinyurl.com/India-corona-fundraising

Yours truly, The Justice Warriors

Hello there everyone! First of all happy (belated) easter from the team: we hope in spite of all the lockdown stress, you were able to (e-)meet family and friends and enjoy the break.

Our team, which has been working tirelessly for more than 400 hrs daily (~30 members now), could also take a little break to bring to you our heartfelt message of solidarity. #STAYHOME, #STAYSAFE

Some project updates:

• With all your support, within the last 2 weeks, we have been able to reach more than 8000 people (~2000 families) and evaluating the needs of more than 2000 more people in 15 different towns of India, as of today.
• We have been able to develop and deliver safety guidelines for the volunteers working on the distribution and transportation of supplies.
• With the lockdown extension till 3rd May, we have requests of at least more 15000 people to be supported, so the fight is not even halfway finished.
• We are still looking forward to meeting the target of 50000 CHF to support these new families and the livelihood projects in different parts of India and to help communities fight hunger on a longer basis. Please help share and support.

You can find more details on the project progress, locations, families supported, FAQs, here: tinyurl.com/India-corona-fundraising

With love (from safe distance) Jyotsna, Vikas, Malavika, Eashan, Vinay, Naveen, Rhythima

Dear All,

Thank you for trusting and supporting us! Together, we have reached our first goal of 25,000 CHF! Over the last ten days, our volunteers have been able to provide food & sanitary rations, and daily meals to more than 750 families (~ 3000 adults and children), from various communities such as bricklayers, fishermen, migrant seasonal workers, victims of communal violence, across eight towns in India. Collectively our team (of about 20 people in India and Switzerland) spent 240 hours daily (including weekends) on calls, coordinating with volunteers, evaluating projects, reaching out to potential donors, writing articles, buying supplies, providing supplies, coordinating with local authorities, maintaining documentation, and developing a sustainable strategy to combat hunger during this pandemic.

Our fight against hunger hasn’t ended, but has just begun. That is why we now have a stretch goal of 50,000 CHF as,

• We receive daily requests from our team in India for food supplies for more families, and currently we are evaluating needs of more than 1500 families (~ 6000 people) across our nine current projects, and new projects in Maharashtra, Punjab, and Karnataka.
• We expect the hunger crisis to escalate in the coming weeks in many regions, as even though the government has stepped up efforts to distribute food, bureaucracy, mismanagement and lack of information on the ground has left a huge vacuum in hunger needs being met.
• We aim at not just fighting hunger today, but for the post-Corona future as well. We are strengthening our collaborations in Delhi and Chandigarh to build zero-hunger sustainable communities and support livelihood developmental projects for women (more updates on these will follow).
• We are developing a system of safe and best practices for volunteers and NGOs together with local governments.

If you would like to work together with us, sign up here: https://tinyurl.com/India-corona-fundraising-form

Find our daily project updates on: http://www.tinyurl.com/India-corona-fundraising

Thank you, thank you all for your support. We are aiming to close our campaign this Sunday evening. We cannot wait any longer! The financial requests from our volunteers in Delhi, Chandigarh, Kerala, Chennai, Aurangabad to buy food and supplies are much more than we expected. We have now delivered food and sanitary packets to more than 300 families (~1200 people). We have received lists of 1500+ families in urgent need. We cannot wait 20 more days to end the campaign.

Here is what you can do:

1. Every franc counts. We are very grateful to receive another contribution from you.
2. Please send our campaign link to 10 people or organizations that you think will support our project.
3. If you want to help us in any other way, send us a message on wemakeit.

Join our zoom call tomorrow (4th April. 13:00 PM CET/Switzerland 16:30 IST/India).

https://ethz.zoom.us/j/195921150

Let’s fight hunger and corona, together! Naveen, Rhythima, and our team from India

Check out our photos above and new video (https://vimeo.com/403608713).

These are stories of how the funds are reaching out in various parts of India from Kerala, Delhi, to Maharashtra, catering to more than 400 families in need. We are actively reaching out to further NGOs and evaluating requests from different parts of India.

We aim to close this campaign by this weekend and thus with this news, we are bringing you some exciting rewards. If you have a donation of 999 CHF or more each, we will make sure that for each of this donation, you get a delicious free Indian dinner for 2 with the organizers (after the COVID-19 situation is contained and we can personally meet). Till then, please help reach this campaign to reach many.

Stay updated on our daily progress, photos, and videos via this link:

www.tinyurl.com/India-corona-fundraising

Thank you, Vielen Danke, for your support! -Naveen and Rhythima

We are very glad to share with you that our volunteers in Mumbai and Aurangabad have already kicked in support for the families in the slums of Aurangabad. Around 200 families there will have food supplies delivered by today. 15 families in Cochin have received financial help from us. A new group of social workers in Delhi has approached us for support with food packets in North Delhi.

For daily updates and for FAQs on how we distribute your funds through our network in India, visit our live update page:

www.tinyurl.com/India-corona-fundraising

We hope to reach our crowdfunding goal of 25,000 CHF by the 5th of April. Support us by sharing this campaign as much as possible, with your friends, your family and within your professional network. We have prepared some messages that you can share on the link above.

Thank you so so much! Rhythima and Naveen

A VERY BIG THANKS TO ALL OF YOU! We reached 25% of the goal in just 24 hours! We really appreciate you feel for the urgency of the cause, as we do. And we are already standing at more than 10000 CHF within 2 days. Thank you so much for your donations, every Franc counts! With immense gratitude for all the amazing backers of the project, we heartily thank the community warriors as well, who made 1000 CHF donations. With the confidence you have given to us that we will reach the goal, we have already started the operations on the ground in Aurangabad and Cochin, to help out the families, and you will hear more from us on that soon.