Centre for Social Action (CSA) has worked with the vulnerable populations in the districts of Raigad, Thane, and Mumbai by actively reaching out to its own usual beneficiaries as well as to daily wage earners / migrant population who have been struggling to survive through the lockdown. CSA as always, works through the network of parishes, religious congregations of women and men, and various other NGO’s across the Archdiocese of Bombay.

CSA has been receiving a number of distress calls through Bishops and priests of various dioceses, Migrant Help Desks set up in various states, Humanitarian Organisations, Government officials, and also directly from people in distress all over Raigad, Mumbai and Thane. To facilitate reaching aid to these people, CSA staff are allocated deaneries and work with the different Churches and religious organisations within this deanery. A distress call received by CSA is immediately passed on to the relevant person to co-ordinate, both, with the person(s) affected as well as the covid 19 response committee of the Church / Institution in the vicinity. This way aid is reached to the people in need in a very short time.  A continuous follow-up process is in place until the case is resolved.

Distribution of Dry Rations and Cooked Food:

A significant initiative of CSA was to buy vegetables from the farmers at Gorai, who were struggling on how to market their produce during the lockdown, and distributing them along with the dry rations given to the needy. Thus, both the farmers as well as the recipients were satisfied with this arrangement.

Through the good will and generosity of the people and the support of parish priests and religious congregations in the archdiocese, our relief work of dry ration distribution has reached out to over 7500 families, in addition to 2 cooked meals for 1000 migrants for the entire month of April in Dombivili. In all our work, we have maintained proper invoices, NEFT payments to vendors, photographs, distribution lists with phone numbers, random verification calls to beneficiaries – all in order to maintain the integrity of our outreach.

Travel Assistance:

100+ migrants who wanted to travel back to their hometown in Jharkhand and Orissa were guided on the process to get themselves registered with the authorities, and were provided food and water for the journey.

Monetary Aid:

4 students were helped with monetary aid to travel back to their hometown.

Support to Migrant Camp At Versova:

Another task that Centre for Social Action initiated was to coordinate with Fr Jerome Parish Priest of Good Shepherd Church (Andheri West) to extend support to the relief camp at Versova for a month. Their team of priests, sisters and lay persons did a remarkable job in providing empathy, listening ear and creating a pleasant atmosphere at the camp. They ably accomplished the task by understanding the needs of the migrants, providing medicines (as prescribed by the MCGM doctor), clothes, toiletries, sports and entertainment, especially after dinner by screening a movie every night. Many others chipped in their bit – one downloading movies, another arranging for newspapers in the vernacular languages, some others supplying biscuits, buns, bananas, clothes, slippers and bags for the journey back to their hometowns. The camp officials too were very impressed with the service given by the Team of Good Shepherd Parish and Convent to the migrants.

Support to Migrants returning to Raigad:

We are supporting the rehabilitation of 125 tribal families, who were working as migrant labour in Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Mumbai, and Pune, and have now returned to Raigad. During their quarantine stay we are supplementing the rations given by the government, and also providing them with recreational facilities to ensure their stay is a pleasant experience; lest they try to break the rules of isolation and cause risk to others. We have also instructed the social workers to prepare the villages with proper awareness to welcome them after their quarantine period without any fear or stigma. We have already stated livelihood support to those coming out of quarantine by providing seeds for vegetable gardens, or full-fledged agriculture during the monsoons; some others are being supported to procure and sell dry fish which has a significant demand in their vicinity.

Looking ahead:

While we pray that the worst is behind us, unless and until normalcy is restored, daily wage labourers/migrants/domestic workers are back to earning their wages, there will be a lot of people who will be needing help. We are working on streamlining ration distributions to ensure food security, and well as explore livelihood options for the vulnerable. You can help us in our mission by donating to us, by visiting our site www.csamumbai.in so that we can reach as many as we can and see that there is no one in want.

–  Fr Mario Mendes, Director, Centre for Social Action