Miseries of Migrant workers amid Coronavirus pandemic
Calcutta Cares Foundation: “Due to Covid-19 pandemic, 2020 has been a rough year for all of us. Schools are still in shut down phase, employees are working remotely and many businesses have been closed. Almost every country has suffered severely from ongoing Coronavirus outbreak. In India things became worst when the outbreak led to staggering humanitarian crisis. The labourers (India’s largest working community in unorganized sector) started migrating to their home states when they became jobless and ran out of food and money. During this, West Bengal, my native state was no exception; it also saw a huge migration of labourers.
Sitting at home, we all were getting updates on our mobile phones and TV of how desperate migrant workers had been trapped in lockdown. Several hundred of migrant workers had no place to stay so they were staying under bridges without food and water.
Calcutta Cares Foundation: Inception of our social entrepreneurship
Knowing their distressed condition, and seeing everyone helping those poor workers; my friends and I decided to help them hence we came up with the idea of forming “Calcutta Cares Foundation”. On the formation day of Calcutta Cares Foundation i.e. 6th May, 2020 we all clubbed our money from our pockets and savings we had in our bank accounts. We bought packets of food and bottles of water from a nearby restaurant. We straight away went to those migrant workers who were staying in the adjoining areas of Tollygunge.
There were around 50 people to whom we gave what we bought for them. We the members of “Calcutta Cares Foundation didn’t go away from there until they finished their food. We all never felt such satisfaction in our life before until we helped those 50 people to end their voracious appetite that day. We all felt really good with our recent act and that’s how we started our social entrepreneurship in the form of “Calcutta Cares Foundation”.With every new attempt of helping others, we gradually started receiving appreciation from our family, friends and neighbors. We were actively helping the underprivileged by providing essential food items to them to survive the pandemic.
Helping Hand in Amphan
On 17th May, we got the bad news of Amphan approaching Bay of Bengal. We knew it would severely affect our state soon. As expected, Amphan caused a lot of damage in West Bengal which included knocking down huge trees and turning many people homeless. This time Calcutta Cares Foundation’s team had to help those happy lives which were turned into devastated ones by the strong storm which had hit the state and left its unpleasant effects. We went to Nimpith, Modhukalli and other nearby areas to provide food to those who were affected by Amphan.
Similarly, on 3rd August, we took another initiative to provide milk and biscuits to the needy children around the heart of the city. We met 118 children that day and their priceless smile we still keep with ourselves as a treasure.
Celebration of 74th Independence Day
Recently, on the occasion of 74th Independence Day, Team of Calcutta Cares Foundation went out with 150 packets of Egg-curry and Rice and distributed those packets to the poor in different areas like Tollygunge Metro, Rabindra Sarovar Lake, Golpark and Gariahat flyover. That’s how we celebrated 74th Independence Day and achieved our mission of the day of providing food to 150 poor people.
Every member of Calcutta Cares Foundation is on his mission to help every individual on this planet. We are consistently trying to put a smile on every gloomy face we find in our life.”
-Arpan Chakraborty (Founder of Calcutta Cares Foundation)
