Giving Back to the Community during a Crisis

The pandemic has obscurely impacted every being’s life, industries have incurred losses throughout the globe, humans are operating in silos while animals are exploring their freedom for the first time since the last few centuries.

Humans have suffered financially, socially, and emotionally. The COVID-19 pandemic has clouded almost every human’s mental health quite deeply, in some way or the other. People have lost their loved ones, livelihood, savings, friends and the future still seems quite diabolical for the population of 7.9 billion earthly denizens.

During the pandemic, innumerable ordinary citizens of our country displayed remarkably strong resilience and lent their support to help the underprivileged. Various charitable trusts, private companies, and NGOs took initiatives to contribute monetarily and socially during the crisis.

Volunteers took on tasks that were directed towards enlightening people about the precautions and safety measures required, like wearing masks, maintaining social distance, and sustaining hygiene. Special virtual and on-ground measures were taken to ensure that people were not hesitant to get the shots of the COVID-19 vaccine. NGOs throughout the country developed programs that were meant to educate the general public across different socio-economic classes about the importance of getting vaccinated and adhering to precautionary measures.

Volunteers helped various NGOs, charitable organizations, hospitals, and nursing homes as per their competencies across various verticals like crowdfunding, procurement, distribution, amplification, importing, and public relations.

While the pandemic was at its peak and destitution was blazing, human altruism won; social workers and nonprofits came forward in large numbers to distribute ration kits, personal hygiene and protection kits, cooked meals, masks, and nourishment supplements to the daily wage workers and under-resourced communities. Volunteers braved the pandemic and provided help at the various vaccine registering departments in the health centers across India as people residing in the remote villages are not well-acquainted with technology.

The after-effects of the pandemic will be quite grave on a psychosocial level, because of the economic slowdown and loss of jobs there is a possibility that a majority of people will face mental health issues. In the coming future, the best way to volunteer and give back to the community would be by offering help if one is a professional counselor or mental health practitioner, and if not, then one can always help others by sustaining and nurturing honest and empathetic communication via phone or video calls as well as in-person bonding with proper precautionary measures in place. It will be immensely fruitful if each one of us can help others in managing their emotions, fatigue, and stress levels by talking it all out with each other and staying resilient.

It is estimated that social work during and after the pandemic will hence be focused on propagating psycho-social healing and advocating the necessary laws, policies and regulations levied relating to the precautionary safety and the mitigation of the pandemic.