The Anatomy of a Relief Kit
Searching for compassion in the contents of a relief kit
Relief /rɪˈliːf/
a feeling of reassurance and relaxation following release from anxiety or distress.
financial or practical assistance given to those in special need or difficulty.
A relief kit should do two things. It should provide assistance to those in need during a crisis to survive and should also relieve them from anxiety or stress.
While the government provided relief by giving 5 kg of wheat/rice per person and 1 kg chana (chickpeas) per family for a month; there were others who had put more thought and compassion into creating a kit - one that ensured survival and addressed the lost livelihood.
In a crisis, “Relief is not just about what you do, but also how you go about it”, says Anshu Gupta, founder of Goonj, an organisation that has been undertaking disaster relief and rehabilitation in the country since 1999.
While we attempt to dissect the contents of a relief kit to understand how it could show compassion; we have also gone beyond to explore how relief work, if done consciously, could be a road to recovery and rehabilitation.
This ration lasts a month for a Family of 4-5 members. Sourced from ration kits made by Karwan-e-mohabbat, Seeds, Goonj, The Yellow Streets, Mazdoor Kitchen, Mazdoor Pahal and Seva Kitchen
0. Immediate Relief
In the first round of relief, when dealing with life and death, the immediate goal is to address hunger, so that people can survive. And to ensure that no one goes hungry, it is important to keep the process simple and trust the knowledge of local volunteers and community leaders. Surveys to map hunger should be avoided in the initial stages, especially when stepping into unknown territories where data is not readily available.
1. Identify Needs
Matching relief material closely to the needs of those hit by the crisis is essential. Families should be provided with all the essential ingredients required to cook a decent meal. The nutritional needs of the family, including those of a pregnant mother, newborn babies and other family members must not be overlooked. During the lockdown, accounts of cases emerged from various parts of the country where basic ingredients like salt and oil were not provided. Access to clean drinking water was often overlooked and taken for granted, not realising that many communities still faced acute shortages.
Rohini Chhari, a tribal women’s leader from Morena, Madhya Pradesh stated that in her village, a predominantly roti-eating belt; rice was provided which left the people craving for their staple diet. From the needs of a family to that of a community, there needs to be an understanding of the local economic, cultural, climatic and social needs. Therefore it’s imperative to contextualise the contents of the relief kit. Goonj added chana dal and mustard oil to the relief kits in Northern India and replaced it with toor dal and coconut oil in the Southern part of the country. Seeds India, another nonprofit that does disaster relief and rehabilitation through a community-led approach, replaced tea with coffee and added sambar powder to their list of essential spices in the south of India.
2. No Compromise On Quantity Or Quality
An intrinsic part of providing relief measures is estimating the average needs of a family’s dietary intake. Yellow Streets, an NGO that uses sports as a tool for development to work with the marginalised youth, designed their kits to provide a balanced, nutritious diet. They tried balancing proteins, fats, amino acids, and carbohydrates, depending on individuals and families’ “required dietary allowance”. Anshu Gupta from Goonj explained that 1.5 kg of ration is required per day, especially if families do not have access to vegetables. It is also essential that the food provided lasts a month per family. The reason behind this is that families spend most of their time and energy waiting in queues to receive relief kits. Not only are they tired and hunger-stricken, they are also unethically photographed for the purpose of documentation. This burden of inadequate food falls disproportionately on women who are the primary caretakers in most homes. If sufficient quantities are not provided, women undergo the maximum amount of stress to meet the shortage and often go hungry themselves in order to ensure enough for the family.
It is in this context, where Parag Talankar from Seeds India, feels that there should be no compromise on the quality and quantity of a ration kit. In their organisation, the shortage of funds was handled by cutting down the money spent on logistics; and most often, employees offered their own vehicles for delivering ration.
During the pandemic, where those on the streets have no safeguard of a public health system, it becomes necessary to arm them with sanitation and hygiene products like masks, sanitizers, disinfectants . One cannot consider the relief to be complete without the addition of sanitation products.
Illustration based on kits provided by Karwan-e-mohabbat, Yellow Streets, Seeds and Goonj
Another commodity that is essential for relief in our country is tea. Although expensive, items like tea and coffee still remain essential ingredients for the day to day existence of many Indians. With a cup of tea or coffee in their hand, anybody, across any socio-economic class, has a lighter day. A hard reality remains, that half the country eats roti with their chai.
With a cup of tea or coffee in their hand, anybody, across any socio-economic class, has a lighter day.
3. Accompany Dry Ration With Utilities:
Many organisations realised with time that while they were providing ration to the families in distress, they had forgotten to check if they had access to utensils or a gas cylinder for cooking. Many of these families were on the margins or Below Poverty Line. In some cases they were homeless or their homes had been destroyed in communal riots, or perennial rains and did not have access to basic utilities. Organisations providing relief faced challenges of duplication and repetition and to avoid such overlaps, they pooled in their resources to address different needs of the community collectively. If one group was already providing dry ration, another would focus on providing utensils or gas cylinders.
Illustration based on kits provided by Seeds and Goonj
4. Boost The Local Economy
Living in the city, one doesn’t realise that basic ingredients, like lentils or rice are produced in the village, then polished in the city, sent out for distribution across, and consumed finally by all - including people back in the village. The pandemic burdened an existing system of capitalism and exploitation, making it imperative to promote and strengthen local systems. Women’s collectives (SHG Cadres) from Pradan in Chhattisgarh, a civil society organisation that works in the poorest regions of India provided seeds and encouraged women to grow vegetables and fruits in their ‘baadi’ ( backyards). An abundance and variety of vegetables like beans, okra, tomatoes, coriander, onions, pumpkin and gourds ensured self sustainability not just for the families who grew these vegetables but also for neighbours and people in nearby villages who couldn’t produce enough on their own. In villages, compassion and resilience could be seen through self sustained kitchen gardens, supporting local farmers and vendors by buying from them in bulk. In the cities, choosing local vegetable sellers and smaller neighbourhood shops and vendors over the ‘big bazaars’ and ‘amazons’ became a necessary choice for supporting small businesses.
5. Promote Local Livelihood And Build Dignity Of Work
Many community kitchens like Mazdoor Kitchen employed local unemployed cooks, daily wage labourers, small vendors as paid team members. Katkatha, an organisation that works with sex workers and their families in G.B road, converted their school into a place where women started making masks, and collaborated with Goonj for distribution. Similarly, Kudumbashree, a women’s collective, run by the government of Kerala, had a local quartet of women seamstresses in their community, stitching cotton masks and bags for their relief kits, generating a small but humble income. In Bundelkhand, Goonj empowered local basket weavers to make baskets with bamboo and thatch that became an essential part of their relief kit in the region; generating Rs 25 per basket for the weaver. Attempts like these to create livelihood while providing relief can help people get back on their feet and come out of a crisis with dignity. They remind us that if we want to, there are always methods to design inclusive systems.
Kudumbashree, a women’s collective, run by the government of Kerala, had a local quartet of women seamstresses in their community, stitching cotton masks and bags for their relief kits, generating a small but humble income.
6. Focus On Neglected Communities
It became imperative to identify and support, the most vulnerable communities through the intersections of caste, class, religion and gender; like tribals, adivasis, sex workers, persons with disability, transgenders, and sanitation workers.
Rachna Mudraboyina, of the Telangana Hijra Transgender Samiti, coordinated with the state government for cash transfers and raised funds to provide sewing machines for the trans community. The women were also trained to make pickles under an initiative titled Quickles. Amruta Soni, a trans woman who works with HIV positive patients in Bihar and Jharkhand ensured regular doses of essential hormonal medicines for trans people. Organisations like Mobile Creches created kits for younger children with toys, colors, books, puzzles; and Varitra Foundation, an organisation that works with rural children in Haryana, created ‘offline learning kits’ which included workbooks and stationery, to cope with the challenge of closed schools and online learning. These individuals and organisations went beyond ration and addressed the special needs for a dignified existence, through long term holistic efforts.
Kits created to address specific needs of different individuals or communities.
7. Make It Eco-friendly and Sustainable
While providing relief, the amount of plastic waste generated by packing, often went unchecked, causing more harm to the environment. Many groups tried to tackle this by packing their contents in large hand made cloth bags. While Goonj, converted old saris into cloth bags for storing grains and lentils in the kits; Kudumbashree employed local women to make cloth bags and cloth masks.
8. Adapt To The Varying Scale Of Disaster
The double impact of Covid and natural disasters like floods, cyclones or violent conflicts in many parts of India impacted communities on a larger scale. Many were left homeless overnight. Relief kits in disaster hit areas have to take care of three essential things: food, clothing and shelter. Many migrants and labourers who were headed back to their village from the city because of reverse migration required tarpaulin because of the lack of pakka (constructed) homes. For people whose homes and shops had been burned down during riots, cash in hand and small business support was needed to kickstart their lives again. It became important to be able to adapt relief efforts constantly to address the ever changing needs of communities.
Sourced from Fueladream
9. Forge Collaborations And Decentralise
Throughout this period, building resilience within communities has occupied the centre stage - whether it is relationships with local kirana (grocery) shops, vendors or farmers or identifying local networks and partners to team up with. Relief cannot be carried out without local collaborations. Gaining local communities’ trust by involving them as equal decision makers is essential for sustainable relief. By the end of 6 months, Mazdoor Pahals’ community kitchen, running in Delhi Subhash Mohalla with families working as ragpickers, was largely being run by women and youth of the community who took full ownership of the initiative.
10. Giving Hope In The time Of Despair
Many groups contextualised their kits during festival times like Eid where in addition to ration kits, ingredients like vermicelli, milk, dried coconut, dry dates, raisins, dry fruits were also provided to bring some happiness amidst the gloom. Efforts like these, went a long way in really putting oneself in another’s shoes, in building empathy, solidarity and giving hope.
This pandemic was and remains about survival. As government schemes and benefits often do not reach people in time, and grains remain locked up in government warehouses, the immediate goal of relief measures’ is to keep people alive. The standard rule of relief is to support someone till they can get back to providing for themselves. However, with the pandemic, the end is nowhere in sight due to waves of unemployment. Therefore there is an urgent need to strengthen our ecosystems - by promoting self reliant economies and inclusive livelihood, demanding institutional support and government accountability.
In our conversations with individuals and organisations who worked relentlessly during the pandemic, we discovered that a ‘compassionate relief kit’ can do much more than just providing relief. If done consciously, the process of providing relief can promote local economies, sustainable livelihoods and create dignity of work in communities that are most affected during a crisis.
Checklist to create a compassionate relief kit
We would like to thank the following individuals and organisations whose powerful experiences have supported us in curating this story. If you would like to know more or support their work, please click on the links below .
Anshu Gupta, Goonj
Nandita Narain and Rashid Ansari, Mazdoor Kitchen
Praveen and Maria, Mazdoor Pahal
Parag Talankar, Seeds India
Geetanjali Babbar, Katkatha
Yusra Khan and Saif Ullah Khan, Yellow Streets
Mohini Saha and SHG cadres , Pradan
Hemlata, Kudumbshree
Rohini Chhari, a tribal women’s leader from Morena, Madhya Pradesh
Various community leaders and the team, Praxis India
Written by Nida Ansari, Pooja Dhingra and Anjani Grover
Illustrated by Adira Andlay
Art Direction & Design by Pooja Dhingra