Poddar Foundation Joins Citizens’ Collective to Provide Mental Health and Sanitisation Support to Dharavi Residents

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Mumbai, May 21, 2020: Poddar Foundation, one of the leading names in the field of mental wellbeing in India, has joined the first citizens’ collective in Maharashtra to enable the residents of Dharavi to safeguard themselves by implementing the ICMR guidelines.

As a part of the coordinated effort in the slum cluster where the number of COVID-positive people has reached 1000, Poddar Foundation will be involved in maintaining sanitation in the area, carry out immunity booster programmes as per the guidelines of the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR), and arrange beds in speciality hospitals for COVID-19 patients.

“Lack of sanitation measures in community toilets has been one of the main reasons that the disease spread so fast and widely. Hence, as a citizen-led initiative, we decided to aid the civic bodies to ensure regular maintenance of community toilets in all of Dharavi. The collective has distributed about 3000 litres of hand sanitisers to the 250 public toilets in Dharavi till date. Besides, we have provided 1-litre spray bottles of sanitisers to 225 people and homoeopathy immune-booster medicines to 1000 people. Additionally, the team will soon provide mental health counselling through the telephone in order to reduce the distress of quarantined people and provide medicines to turn around 100 asymptomatic cases following AYUSH guidelines. We are active in the entire 90-Feet Road area and other parts of Dharavi,” says Prakriti Poddar, Managing Trustee, Poddar Foundation.

The collective has renowned service organisations like Rotary Club as well as volunteers of Maharashtra Ekta Abhiyaan and Dharavi Foundation. “Over the past week, the collective has been supplying free ration kits to the residents of Dharavi and providing them with free masks and gloves. We are also educating the people on following social distancing as per government norms and will maintain a database to track the intervention. The collective is also working in Telangana and Tamil Nadu where it is working along with the government, NGOs, volunteers and other charitable organisations,” says Prakriti Poddar.