Conserve: India’s Top 50 Last Mile COVID – Relief Responders

Conserve: India’s Top 50 Last Mile COVID – Relief Responders

The World Economic Forum (WEF) started Covid Response Alliance for Social Entrepreneurs to mobilise support and resources for the social entrepreneurs working as the frontline responders since the outbreak of the pandemic last year. This alliance seeks to create a multistakeholder partnership between leading social entrepreneurs across the globe, working to ensure that the people with the least/negligible socio-economic capital in society, most prone to be left out in the recovery process, are being given adequate attention and support they need. The work of these organisations is making an impact in the four crucial areas of need: prevention and protection from the virus, treatment and relief, education about vaccines and equitable access to it and securing livelihoods.

The India Response Effort is WEF’s collaboration of Indian social entrepreneurs who provide critical on-ground support during the pandemic. At a time when the state machinery is overwhelmed and overburdened with the challenges of regulating the spread of the virus and providing relief measures to every section of the society, the impact work of these organisations reaching the poor communities in rural and urban areas is nothing short of a ray for hope for the underprivileged.

Conserve India has been awarded WEF’s India’s Top 50 Covid-19 Last-Mile Responders award for its Covid relief work. Conserve’s Covid relief program ‘Sahyog‘ has been directed towards providing relief to the communities of waste pickers, refugees and local artisan groups who are the ones worst hit by the pandemic. Conserve has undertaken operations of producing and distributing thousands of N-95 masks among the underprivileged and creating awareness about the usage and disposal of masks and Covid-19 care equipment, reducing vaccine hesitancy, providing month’s ration to households whose source of livelihood were taken because of the lockdown besides starting 15 community kitchens for migrants who had no food security and couldn’t go back to their homes because of the lockdown.

Conserve has collaborated with organisations like World Fair Trade Organisation, Asia and UNHCR to collect information on making high efficacy masks and relaying it to the targeted communities to provide them with a source of livelihood. To help the local artisan groups with some seed money to kick start their operations once again, Conserve has been engaged in fundraising with the help of corporates and Fair Trade Forum India. 

Conserve has played a vital role in ensuring that the Covid relief work is inclusive and even considers the plight of the disadvantaged and vulnerable sections of the society while looking for alternative means of livelihood for these communities through project Sahyog. 

As part of its long-term rehabilitation program, it is currently developing training programmes for microenterprise groups to upcycle personal protection equipment (PPE) kits to create livelihoods from COVID-19 waste.

Conserve is humbled to be a part of the esteemed group of Top 50 Last Mile COVID- Relief Responders Social entrepreneurs with a combined reach for relief efforts reaching 45 million! 

We would like to extend our thanks and gratitude to the World Economic Forum, COVID Response Alliance for Social Entrepreneurs, Sankalp Forum, Schwab Foundation for social entrepreneurship and Ashoka Changemakers for recognising these efforts!