As the nation wide lockdown started in Hyderabad as well, members of Anveshi joined scores of other individuals and organizations into different kind of relief activities to form COVID 19 Advocacy Lockdown Collective.
Annapurna Canteens: Soon after the lockdown, scores of students, daily wage workers, stranded travellers were left without food as all small and big eateries closed suddenly. Women’s groups members went around to check if they were open, found that most were closed and where they were, served only a few. So we wrote to the government to open up the mostly closed Annapurna canteens; to expand the existing Rs.5 Annapurna canteens to more localities and serve dinner and breakfast. We made repeated checks, visiting the canteens at different times to see if they were serving what they promised. And made sure to bring it to the attention of the media (Please find the letter here).
Ration shops: By 1st week of April, while some were serving cooked food, many families and households reached out to seek dry rations as their stored rations had run dry and the Annapurna canteens were not enough. A few of the activists started seeking donations, bought rations and distributed to people close by. Then we wrote to the government to expand the ration shops, stop excluding people on the basis of ration cards, make the rations nutritional and sufficient to last at least a month (Please find letter 1 and letter 2)
Telangana Migrant Helpline: By the end of the first week, the members joined the Telangana Migrant Helpline, joining others in providing dry rations along with many others. As the calls poured in from different parts of the city, the group innovated with various ways of helping. From delivering dry rations directly, as the Lockdown progressed, they shifted to paying the nearest grocery stores through online payments.
Shelter Homes: Temporary shelter homes housing homeless people and migrant stranded workers were dumped without sufficient resources were also supplied with food and clothes. Government support was demanded (please find the letter here).
Health Advocacy: It involved writing to the government to take up community health education (please find letter here), not target specific communities for the spread of the disease (please find letter here in english and telugu) and set up a health helpline to counsel and support the people in the quarantine facilities and undergoing treatment (please find letter here). Anveshi Health Group also initiated a letter in support of junior doctors in Gandhi hospital supporting their demand to include more hospitals for COVID-19 treatment and for systemic improvements in health services.
Travel Support: As the lockdown entered the fourth phase and migrants were allowed to travel, with hardly any transport provided to them, the migrants started walking to reach their homes hundreds of km away. The Lockdown collective moved to provide food for the walking migrants, demanding temporary shelters to be opened and also arranging transport for these migrants. This process included getting their names and details, arranging for transport, getting the migrants in their vehicles, negotiating and taking help from the destination states and districts, following up till they reached their homes and later as they stayed in quarantine centres. (Please find the letter here).
Supporting Shramik Trains: As police registration process proved difficult for migrants, they, as part of the Lockdown Collective worked with the local authorities, pleading and demanding for the registered and unregistered migrants to be sent home through the Shramik trains (please find the letter here). This too involved mediating and facilitating the stranded migrants to reach the railway stations from Medchal highway or the Secunderabad railway station. Food and temporary shelters before they could get into the Shramik trains was demanded consistently through petitions (please find the letter here).
Public Interest Litigation: Two PILs were filed in relation to caring for the stranded workers, as the employers dumped their employees everywhere without arranging for transport and without cash (please find the PIL here). Through Mandamus litigation the intervention and supervision of the court was sought leading to enumeration of brick kiln workers, more shramik trains to Orissa and opening up of temporary shelters and care for workers (please find the PIL here).
Petitions, press statements, Twitter messages, PILs were written, deployed and filed as many are close to the ground the entire time, aware of the problems and mediated them to the authorities to bring the issues to their attention. The following sample of letters and Orders received as part of the Public Interest Litigation filed in the High Court of Telangana State.