Serving Our Community in Lockdown
Tuesday, June 16, 2020
I grew up in a rough community. Gang violence, drug abuse, alcohol addiction– I have seen it all first-hand, and all of its ugly consequences. It has killed many of my friends and the people I know. Even those who survived are in a bad spot. For as long as I remember, I have always wanted to do something about it. That was the main motivation behind deciding to become a social worker.
Namaste, I'm Jagannath Pokhrel. I have been working for Kopila Valley in Surkhet for the past two years. I'm writing to share my experience of working as a social worker during the ongoing coronavirus crisis.
As the pandemic gripped the world, Nepal’s government announced a nation-wide lockdown on March 24, which still continues today. This means that life has become difficult for many as job opportunities have disappeared and many families rely on daily wages to buy food to feed their families. As the crisis was emerging, we had a clear understanding that many of our school families would need food support if we went into lockdown even for a week.
Our team began to mobilize and stock our food bank before the lockdown even began. We noticed that our families were generally alright until the sixth day of lockdown when we began to receive calls from our students’ families asking for support. Hearing about and seeing the hardship our families faced was difficult, and it is often hard to stay strong while listening to their stories. As time went on we began to not only provide food to our Kopila families but also to other families in our community who were the neediest.
We have a communication channel where the teachers call their students, collect information about who is in need, and refer them to the Health & Wellness Team for further support. As a social worker, I have been taking referrals from teachers and other team members to verify the information, plan and execute the distribution, and record and document the information with the help of our team.
Seeing the emotional response of many of our team members during the food bank can be difficult, but it inspires me to work with more affection and dedication. I have always loved my work as a social worker and serving the community in crisis, and I feel that now is my time to give my fullest to the people. This current situation is new for me and I think all of us. I am learning a lot working in this crisis as I make mistakes, realize, and try to do better next time.
I would like to say thank you to Maggie, Tope Sir, and the entire BlinkNow Team for working tirelessly to support our community in their time of need. I am very grateful to our school team and teachers for their continuous support to make this distribution happen. I would also like to thank our donors from the bottom of my heart for caring about our community from so far away.
Thank you,
Jaggu
I am Rosna Kafle. I work in Surkhet for BlinkNow and today it counts 5 years of working here as full-time staff. I first came to Surkhet to volunteer for Dashain Camp in 2015. I couldn’t stop thinking of the time I spent during the 2 weeks at camp which led me to come back and work here.
When I came back in May 2015, I was a teacher for grades 6, 7, and 8 for a year, but I was always looking forward to joining the Women’s Center which I eventually did in April 2016. Since then I have helped to design and implement an empowerment program that emphasizes business and entrepreneurship training to help more women become independent and self-sufficient. Members learn the crafts of sewing, weaving, and cosmetology, and participate in workshops on empowerment, business planning, goal-setting, marketing, and more.
During the COVID-19 crisis, we have closed the on-site operations of the Women’s Center in order to stop the movement of the virus. However, we have been tracking the wellbeing and the mental state of women through counseling phone calls. All of the women in the Women’s Center belong to disadvantaged groups in Surkhet and most families are dependent on daily wage work. Because the national lockdown has caused these families to lose all income, we have been providing food during our regular check-ins with them.
Throughout the past 7 years of running the Women’s Center, our team, including myself, have researched and introduced new training in an effort to constantly improve our program. Just before the lockdown, we made a new plan which shifts our program development to be strategically inclusive of other programs within the organization.
Now, this national lockdown has given us the time to think and work on writing the plans in a structured way. While some Women’s Center staff are working on check-ins with our women, others are using their time to work on the new strategic plan to get our programs in the best place possible for the time when we can eventually reopen the Women’s Center. We look forward to a time when we can begin running our programs again, reunite with our amazing trainees, and continue to empower the women of Surkhet.
Sincerely,
Rosna