The Social Network

A number of crowdfunded and community-based initiatives has come forward to combat the social and economic fallouts of the Covid-19 outbreak

- Kathakali Chanda And Divya J Shekhar

Residents of Chennai's Zone 13, including Archana Hari (centre), crowdfunded ₹22 lakh for their neighbourhood's 1,038 conservancy workers

It all started with a Facebook post. On March 16, as social distancing was being advised to contain the spread of Covid-19 in India, freelance digital marketer Mahita Nagaraj put up a message on her wall, asking whether her friends who stayed overseas would like her to check in on their near and dear ones, especially the elderly, in Bengaluru. The response was overwhelming—the post was shared and re-shared, and requests poured in from those asking for help as well as those volunteering it. Within 24 hours, the post snowballed into a Facebook community, Caremongers India, as 200 members joined it from across the country; the number rose to 3,500 in the next three days.

On March 20, Nagaraj acquired a new mobile number to operate as a helpline for Caremongers India. “I was naive enough to believe I could handle operations on my own. Once the phone number was given out, 800 to 900 calls started coming in a day,” says the 38-year-old single mother. But even then, the community was just beginning to grow. The explosion happened after the national lockdown was announced on March 24. “About 80 percent of the help requests we got were from senior citizens. They were the most affected by the lockdown, because of their reliance on outside help, be it their maid, driver etc. Now, in under a month, I don’t think there is a single state in the country from which we haven’t received a request,” says Nagaraj.