The extent of the corona pandemic in India is devastating.
India aid in the district of Erding provides valuable support.
Wartenberg / Aufkirchen - The devastating extent that the corona pandemic can bring is currently being relentlessly demonstrated in India.
350,000 new infections and around 3,000 deaths in one day - numbers that make you shudder.
Images of mass cremations are also shocking in this country.
Last but not least, the two India aid that are active in the district of Erding: the South India aid Aufkirchen and the association, which counts numerous sponsors and donors in Wartenberg, step by step.
Monika Blechinger-Zahnweh is committed to the latter.
She knows one of the many tragic individual fates.
Sister Kala, who does valuable work for the association in the southern Indian state of Kerala, told her about a family drama.
Blechinger-Zahnweh reports that two sponsored children of the association died of the virus - they were both of primary school age.
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Tragic fate: Mother Jiji (r.) Lost her two children to the virus.
Sister Kala (left) brought her and her grandmother a grocery package.
© step by step
The father died in a flood accident in 2018. From then on, the mother, her name is Jiji, was solely responsible for looking after her children. To make matters worse, all three fell ill with Covid-19, only the mother survived. Sister Kala reports that she has lost all her zest for life. The mother is now staying with her parents, but both are old and sick. They could no longer earn money for the family. In addition, Jiji's brother is mentally and physically disabled. “She now lives for her parents and her brother,” Kala reports in English. Jiji now runs from door to door in the neighborhood in order to generate at least a small income with laundry, cleaning and cooking services.
This is just one of the many terrible individual fates that lie behind the current catastrophe. Usually, step-by-step help is provided by sponsoring children who should be able to go to school. It's about building schools, children's homes, wells and improving medical care. At the moment, however, the focus is on funds for acute care. According to the chairman of the association, Ida Gaßner, around 60,000 euros have been raised in the past few months.
The pandemic as it is currently in our country is "peanuts" against the situation in India, says Blechinger-Zahnweh. “It's about bare survival there.” She looks after the godparents in and around Wartenberg for India Aid. There alone, a good 200 counts step by step. In total, the association from Tiefenbach in the Landshut district currently has almost 5,000 sponsorships.
Blechinger-Zahnweh reports that the situation in India affects the poorest in the slums above all.
Step by step help with food and medicine donations, including Mother Jiji.
"The situation is still dramatic, because there is no state supply, and people are dependent on help through donations for pure survival," says Blechinger-Zahnweh, who herself supports two sponsored children - eight and ten years old.
They are currently "relatively okay".
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Food in white bags, medicine in red: This is how the handover of the aid packages, which Sister Kala organizes with volunteers, works.
© step by step
She is happy that the media are finally taking up the issue and that Prime Minister Narendra Modi "also allows external aid - unlike the flood".
Sister Kala organizes the purchase of food and medicine on site, puts together aid packages and visits the families in the slums every 14 days.
Together with volunteers, she distributes the packages.
They are sufficient for around two weeks.
“It is really unbelievable what you and the helpers achieve, despite the risk of falling ill themselves.
For me, Sister Kala is a kind of Mother Teresa, ”says Blechinger-Zahnweh.
Despite the acute care that is currently in the foreground, attempts are still being made to enable lessons for the children as far as possible.
“It works very well digitally too,” says Blechinger-Zahnweh, not least of all from her own godchildren.
Meanwhile, one is also shocked by the images from the 1.3 billion country at the Aufkirchener Association for Child Sponsorships in South India.
A current report from the local contact in the southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu, Pastor Jeremias, has not yet been received, says the club's secretary, Wolfgang Thomas, when asked by our newspaper.
The aid from Aufkirchen has long been running at full speed in the pandemic.
As reported, the association called for a solidarity donation campaign last year, which raised 15,000 euros.
It is also known that in 2020 it made the construction of ten houses possible.
And of course he is currently hoping for support.
In addition to food, the money is also used to organize help for self-help - for example with goats or sewing machines.
The sponsored children receive financial support twice a year.
However, only if there is evidence that the children actually attend school.
The association is keeping an eye on it - also because the government could draw funds, Thomas knows.
The Aufkirchener Verein looks after around 200 sponsors who help around 300 sponsored children from the age of ten to a decent income in their later life.
The majority of the sponsors come from the municipality of Oberding and the district of Erding.
"We also have many friends of the association who donate regularly - sometimes in the four-figure range," says Thomas.
Donation accounts:
Child
sponsorship South India:
Sparkasse Erding-Dorfen, IBAN: DE11 7005 1995 0020 2640 16.
Step by step - help with a system:
GLS-Bank Munich, DE57 4306 0967 8236 2178 00.