Since the beginning of the lockdown, we have all been reading heart-breaking news stories about fellow Indians stranded because of restrictions on interstate travel, or healthcare professionals not being able to hold their babies because of the risk of infection – it’s been overwhelming, to say the least. We were in awe of how communities stepped up to support each other – be it in the form of fundraisers, food collection drives, and many other wonderful initiatives.
I think as students, it’s often confusing to know how you can help in such a situation. In a time where we could help the most by just staying home, it was confusing to determine what we could do to be more productive members of our community. When we chanced upon The Crisis Project’s (UK) initiative called ‘Letters to the NHS’ – it felt like a sign. We finally found a way students, such as ourselves, could contribute.
‘Write to Recognize’ is inspired by this movement. It is a simple platform, where we share a story of a key worker with a volunteer, who then writes a letter of appreciation for them. Since people have a chance to nominate key workers, we have been able to send letters to doctors, nurses, pilots, grocery store workers, police, volunteers, and community leaders – the list is endless. The lockdown has had devastating consequences for us all and it just seemed like the perfect time to go out of our way to show gratitude towards these heroes!
We don’t know how much of a difference a letter can make but we believe that we have built a more emphatic community in a mere few weeks. In the first 2 weeks itself, we reached over 150 key workers and 200 volunteers. We were overwhelmed and full of gratitude for such an enthusiastic response to our initiative. If you’re reading this and are inspired to join our movement, head to https://writetorecognize.ind.in and sign up as a volunteer today!