Every household in India has been ravaged by the deadly Covid-19 second wave this year. The situation is no different in West Bengal, where the surmounting cases have been touching close to 20,000 people. Amongst them, the worst hit have been the slum dwellers residing in Tikiapara, who are dreading its rampant spread in their locality and panicking about the safety of their lives.

Lack of awareness and the stigma attached with contracting the virus has made the residents wary of reaching out for help on time. To ease their hesitation, Mamoon Akhtar has been tirelessly working through Samaritan Help Mission to ensure that lakhs of people get timely medical intervention.

“I noticed that even after being sick, the residents here were more afraid of losing their day’s wage than dying due to Covid. They neglected their health and unknowingly became a carrier to thousands of people living here with space constraints.” - Mamoon Akhtar

From his personal experience, about 85 percent of people in his locality can recover from covid in home isolation, eliminating the pressure on our already crippling healthcare institutes. But for that, he needs to create a Safe Home for isolating the patients with oxygen support and sanitized washrooms in Tikiapara itself.

The hysteria about being abandoned by private and government hospitals due to lack of resources among people can only be addressed with this shelter space. The major challenge coming across Mamoon’s way now is doing that in an already overcrowded slum area with limited means.

“With the second wave and a lockdown in place, we are trying to bridge the gap by providing them support through free medical supplies and ration kits rather than feeding their fears. I wish, in such a dire situation, nobody should have to make their health the least addressed concern due to financial reasons.”

Samaritan Help Mission is basically the umbrella under which an ambit of activities are undertaken to enhance the livelihoods of the Tikiapara slum dwellers with respect to education, health and self-sustenance. Right now, Covid has been escalating here and to contain the numbers they really need to urgently put in place their dedicated Safe Home, whose construction can only be supported with funds amounting to 30 lakhs.

“We have put all our funds into this emergency establishment as the situation is extremely alarming. We know people who have died on roads due to shortage of beds and oxygen and we worry if the same fate awaits us. So we are gradually trying to put 30 beds in place with trained healthcare workers and emergency ambulance services. We are already humbled by the generosity of people supporting us financially that we soon hope to increase the beds to 100.”

For Mamoon, what started with an incident to save a mother from being pressured by some goons to indulge in anti-social work, has now turned into his way of life to give back to the society. He was conferred the ‘Karamveer Puraskar Award’ in 2009 and also the ‘Amazing Indian’ by Times Now in 2013 for his strata of work in the domain for:

• Successfully imparting quality education to children unable to afford fees.
• Teaching financial literacy to the slum dwellers where he grew up.
• Running a school and vocational training institute in Tikiapara and Bankra

A little support from your end will help them successfully tackle the second wave of Covid-19. Please come forward to help them win this fight by generously contributing to this noble deed.