LIVING IN LOCKDOWN
We are grateful to report that we are all safe and well during the COVID-19 pandemic, though we have experienced some cases on our campus. Our staff and children are safe here behind our gates and we are taking every precaution we can to keep them that way. None of us have ever seen a moment in time like this: A single virus has united billions of us with the same struggles, the same isolation, the same fears and concerns. Yet somehow we are finding life and hope in it all.
The key areas that the virus is affecting us here on the mission are:
- The return of dozens of past children means more mouths to feed but also more hands to help.
- A loss of self-generated funding due to the closing of our school has made paying salaries and wages a real struggle for us.
- Closed borders and difficulty traveling have meant a lack of laborers for the completion of our farm work.
- Unavailability of resources limits where we are able to help.
- We have been forced to close our volunteer program for the foreseeable future.
ON A NATIONAL LEVEL
With the highest rate of density population in the world a pandemic like COVID-19 is devastating for India. The country has been hit incredibly hard by the virus and the extremely strict lockdown laws in place to combat infection. While the Government has put efforts in place to support at risk people there is still a tremendous need. We are fortunate to live in a rural area where there are relatively low cases, higher population areas are seeing thousands of new cases each day.
As time goes on it is expected that the virus will become more prominent in our area, thankfully a lower population density will work in our favor if/when it does.
OUR HEROES
The work here doesn’t stop when there is a lockdown. If we want to have enough food to eat, fields have to be harvested, watered and tended to every single day. Without the regular seasonal labor that we are used to, our staff, staff children and senior boys have really stepped up. In addition to their already full workload, they have dug deep and put in the extra hours to ensure our crops are planted, tended to and harvested through each season. Here are just a few of the incredible people who have stepped up in the last few months. We are so proud of each of them:
In the coming weeks we will be relying more than ever on our staff, staff children, our older Mission kids and the large number of returned alumni (old Mission children who have returned home to wait out the lockdown). Harvest season will soon be upon us, which means there will be an endless list of jobs to do with urgent pace. It may be difficult, be we know that together we can get through this!
FINDING JOY
There is always hope. Even in the darkest of nights we can remember that the dawn will eventually come. We are reminding ourselves and our children of this fact as we read stories and reports of the horrors that others have endured these last few months. In the hope of inspiring our supporters and providing a little update of life here in lockdown, we put together this quick little video – may it bring some joy into your life.
Join Our Newsletter
Follow along with our Covid-19 response by signing up to our weekly newsletter. We promise it is not boring and we won’t spam you for donations either! You can sign up here.