KARACHI: As many as 2,700 households in the city have so far benefitted from a recently launched project aimed at helping the poor in the continued period of lockdown that has rendered countless daily-wage earners jobless.

Titled ‘Corona Ration Project’, the venture run by a small team of dedicated individuals is about collecting donations, coordinating the production of ration bags, creating strong ties with grass-roots organisations, and helping families that have been most impacted.

“It was seeing the severe impact coronavirus was causing [on] our home, Karachi, that this initiative was born. The majority of our population cannot take time off from work without literally starving. Covid-19 can take more lives through hunger and poverty than disease itself if not taken seriously,” Mahnoor Fatima Farishta, leading the project, said explaining what motivated her team to start the project.

The team, she shared, managed to raise Rs6 million in two weeks and provided rations to families in Korangi, Malir, Orangi, Surjani, Lyari, Lilly Bridge, Machhar Colony and Saddar.

To ensure honest and efficient distribution, the team has formed close relationships with local charities and non-governmental organisations that have experience working with the city’s most impoverished communities.

“We are also working to help marginalised groups such as Rohingya refugees, transgender communities and religious minority groups, many of whom have been sidelined in this relief effort,” said Farishta who works at tech start-up doctHERs.

She founded the ‘Smart Clinic’ where female factory workers are provided access to primary care through telemedicine at their workplace.

The venture won the Tommy Hilfiger Social Innovation Challenge in Amsterdam and the MIT Tiger IT Challenge Bangladesh in 2019 being granted $1 million to expand to factories within South Asia.

Donations for the corona project can be made locally in the name of Mahnoor Fatima Farishta.

Account No 1045-0078-008231-01-3

IBAN #: PK73 BAHL 1045 0078 0082 3101 Bank Al Habib Limited.

Published in Dawn, April 10th, 2020