From Vulnerability To Tenacity - Corona Times for Children in Need of Care and Protection

Today, the world is facing an unprecedented danger with COVID-19. The scale and spread of COVID-19 is worrying for us all. We are all rightly concerned for our families, friends and communities during these difficult times. Here, at Make A Difference, we stand together supporting India’s most vulnerable children, who are deeply impacted due to this global pandemic both directly and indirectly. As each day unfolds, we hear stories of the ways in which the COVID-19 pandemic is affecting millions of lives. But there remains a critically affected population, whose stories are less likely to be heard, and whose needs are still unseen in the midst of aid responses: homeless, institutionalized and displaced children/youth, who are in urgent need of care and protection. 

I. The Global Pandemic - Creating more vulnerabilities

Implications on the current safety net: The virus outbreak threatens children/youth in care and protection and their future, and the organizations supporting them, in an extraordinarily disintegrating way. 

• Long term / short term resource scarcity: The Shelter homes and Childcare Institutions (CCI’s) are struggling for supplies to meet the daily needs of their children. In spite of the government's action, not every child in the shelters are equally served and catered. The mid-day meals, lunches which were earlier provided to children at schools, has now shifted as shelter’s responsibility. There is immense stress on the CCI’s and shelters due to the economic slowdown as funding stability is at risk, which has a direct impact on the future of children. Situation remains the same for children, who were sent back to their homes in panic due to the government mandate of lockdown and social distancing, as preventives for the spread of Corona virus. Ironically pondering, these children were put in CCI’s as they were from immensely low-income families i.e due to poverty struck home conditions, orphans or did not have a safe place to grow. Infact the impact of lockdown has only increased adversities for daily wage earners who lost their jobs/means of livelihood and daily wages. Given all these conditions, about 35 Million Children in our country are at huge risk and facing survival issues for almost everything everyday.
• Gaps in education and learning loss: Closed schools not only interrupts access to free or reduced meals for millions in need but also impacts other essential services; from children having a safe place to spend their day, to access to better care systems/caregivers/care agents in their lives, exposure to the world outside, extracurricular activities and of course their education - all of these things were crucial to break the cycle of poverty. The gap in learning, confidence, self esteem, and increased trauma related to all the above is only widening and will be largely determining the future of children as citizens.
• Health Risks: While reports suggest that children aren’t physically as vulnerable to the virus, the health and well-being of the adults in a child’s life has a direct impact on their safety and mental health. More poverty and lack of basics will have greater impacts on adults' existing health conditions, e.g. Adults in families of Children in need who are suffering with asthma, diabetes etc right now have no means to continue the treatment as they are struggling to survive for basics like food and water. This puts children at the risk of no support and care from their caregivers with an adverse impact on their mental health as well.
• Higher school dropouts: Children who were about to appear in board exams become highly vulnerable because of the economic shock as well as a break in preparation. This may lead to high levels of dropout from school to support families back home post COVID-19.
• Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACE) leading to Post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD): Higher uncertainty overall for the present, information and education about pandemic not reaching children, the way it should, may create higher stress and possible PTSD later.
• Higher influx of more children coming to shelter homes: Due to high mortality rate, children may lose their primary caregivers/parents to the disease, leading them to the shelter homes. Providing for the current number of children in the shelter care systems is difficult and with more influx the quality of their health / hygiene / sanitation / living conditions may only worsen by putting more stress on the current systems.
• Increased child labour: Covid-19 has increased pressure on family adults who are daily wage earners but cant go to work due to illnesses or who have lost jobs with no means of income for the families daily necessities. This may lead to adults pushing children in these families to resorts to options like child labour. 
• Increased child marriages: Million girls who have been in shelter homes and have been sent home in COVID-19 induced social distancing are at a high risk of child marriages. Families with girls in teenage with almost no income generation measures and in dire need of money, may be forced into child marriages to just reduce one/few bread eater/s at home.

In light of all the above mentioned reasons, we (reiterating the Quint article) urge governments, donors and evangelists to take urgent measures to protect vulnerable children and their rights in India.

INVEST in CARE; INVEST in CHILDREN

The need of the hour is prioritizing efforts to continue protecting and providing CARE for all children, using all available resources and technology.

• To provide economic and supply assistance, to low-income families and shelters and CCIs. that will be hit first and hardest, to help them meet their basic needs without resorting to child labor or child marriage. 
• To minimize disruptions in children’s access to essential and life-saving healthcare services. Also provide back up efforts to identify displaced youth and children in dire need because of being orphaned by COVID-19 (direct or indirect).
• To expand better equipped community care systems to children in dire need of extended family and foster care;
• To strengthen informal education systems so that there is no discontinuity in their education that in turn demotivates them to drop out. 
• To do more awareness campaigns about traumatic experiences of children due to Covid-19, start hotlines especially for vulnerable children, and other services for children at risk of violence in the shelter homes or online sexual exploitation
• To bridge the digital divide by expanding technology access to children so that they have information, and their abilities to organise and express themselves is still possible in situations of such as lockdowns. 

Measures by Make A Difference to suit the unpredictable and evolving situation around COVID-19

1. Ensure sufficient care is available for the children who enter the shelter home. We are converting our sourcing, recruitment, induction, and training events to online versions so that our 3500+ team is ready and our on-ground operations are not affected by the crisis. 
2. Maintain close conversations with shelter authorities and families of children so that none of the children in the program drop out and continue their education
3. Building modules focused on exam readiness and life skills so that children feel confident about their exams and we are able to maintain our 95%+ pass percentage. 
4. Providing MAD run community home as a temporary stay option for youth who don’t have a house of their own. Also connecting our youth and their families to relevant government support available in their area.
5. Providing a need-based stipend ranging from 5000 to 7500 to youth who lost their jobs in situations where they do not have access to government support
6. Providing an online support circle for youth struggling with family pressure during COVID once a week
7. Creating a community of funders and supporters around a shelter home to take care of its basic needs.
8. Exploring possibilities of setting up tech systems inside the shelter homes to continue providing MAD interventions within the shelter home during the lockdown.
9. Freezing all community development, program development, and scale readiness activities until funding pipeline is figured out.

A rights-respecting response from the privileged to the COVID-19 crisis stricken children and youth will not only alleviate potentially far-reaching harm during the pandemic, but can also benefit children over the long term. This is not only for immediate relief but for resilience and safe-guarding their future.

Visit https://makeadiff.in/covid-19 to support our children in these tough times of despair (DM me). Or Click on the link above to read more about our work, get involved with us as a volunteer/staff.

References: This narrative has been put together with intense research done online and interviews with sector experts from International and Indian non-profits working for marginalized communities, migrants, and majorly with the demography of Children in Need of Care and Protection. Online references were from the websites and social media publishing of UNICEF, Rednose day, Malala Fund, International Human Rights Commission and United Nations.

Reach out (DM) to the author (link below) for discussing possibilities of partnerships.