Srinagar 23 April: As soon as the UT administration of Jammu and Kashmir ordered a lockdown in order to prevent the spread of Corona Virus, Faizan Hasan Khan who runs a Non Governmental Organisation Mukhtar Memorial Society understood that he has to get his team ready for the though and tiring days ahead.
In a statement issued here, Peoples part of the world were already in lockdown since August 2019, then we had a very harsh winter this time, so out of my personal experience in this field I predicted that the low income groups of our society are going to be in lot of trouble and we have to do something for them, exclaimed Faizan.
But when I expressed my desire in front of my family that I am going to do this it was out rightly rejected by my mother with a claim that I have a 8 months old son and I need to think about him.
Firstly I was convinced but when I started receiving heart wrenching distress calls from different corners I said to my family they too have kids at home and have nothing to eat. Finally they somehow agreed, I guess when nothing works in Kashmir the emotional card always does. Someone has rightly said that we are the most compassionate race in present times.
I knew this was not going to be easy as it was not a flood or a earthquake relief work. Whosoever was going out was at high risk of getting infected, so we decided to keep manpower as low as possible and we narrowed in to team of four. Adv.Faizan Bhat, Er.Aijaz Ahmad, Er.Nayra Majid and myself.
My office was far from my residence so we converted my residence into a makeshift focal point of supply from here we were going to operate for the next few days or months no one knew how much time.
The next day we got the raw materials to prepare food kits for the families and stocked the same at my home. Nayra who is also my better half was handling the distress calls and messages from the ones in need besides doing the daily household chores and looking after our son.
Faizan, Aijaz and I would make the food kits and then in pairs would go out and deliver it to the deserving after verification taking all necessary precautions. We would go out in alternate pairs.
The first few days were fine but when the restrictions got tougher we were added to a WhatsApp group Relief Coalition which had few other organisations and individuals working on the same lines. This helped a lot as we divided areas and now had to cater just Downtown Srinagar. The uptown was being looked after by another organisation Saaya-a shadow of hope and other individuals. Later this group was a team of more than 100 volunteers who were looking after each district in Kashmir.
We were also assisted by District Disaster Management Authority Srinagar for providing us with vehicular support to reach out to the families when things got worse.
So far we have provided these free food kits to more than 400 families. Value of one kit is roughly around a thousand rupees. We don’t believe in photo ops so don’t ask us for such proofs, but yes we have kept a record of all the beneficiaries. Many other organisations & anonymous individuals have been doing an appreciable job be it Athrout, HPVT, ELFA, Ehsaas etc. One organisation or individual can never be sufficient for handling such a crisis it has to be a collective effort.
We are still doing our bit and hope for a dawn that will end this pain and suffering for the whole human kind.
Mukhtar Memorial Society, NGO help needy amid COVID-19 lockdown
