COVID-19 support for Wikimedians/India

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COVID-19 pandemic in India, which first started as a single case on 30 January 2020 has hit the country hard in its first and second waves. Currently, India not only has the largest number of confirmed cases in Asia. but also has the second-highest number of confirmed cases in the world (after the United States) with more than 17 million reported cases of COVID-19 infection and around 2 million deaths as of April, 2021. The pandemic made a heavy impact on the economic condition on the country leading to one of the worst recession in the history of independent India.

Like any other citizens of India, the pandemic has hit the Wikimedia volunteers, their family members, friends, relatives etc. leading to the unfortunate loss of their health and life, employment, mental stability and peace etc. Although our primary work is to improve free knowledge on the world wide web, in this exceptional situation, we believe we should put our efforts together to support the Wikimedia volunteers in India as best we can. Wikimedia volunteers have tirelessly built the largest encyclopedia in the history of the planet without expecting any recognition for the last 20 years. They have built and are building everyday amazing tools, databases, digital libraries, online dictionaries etc. every day. In these difficult times, when the volunteer community, whom we consider the most valuable asset of Wikimedia movement is badly hit, we feel that it is time to support them even if they have not asked for it.

The COVID-19 support for Wikimedians in India program aims to provide some specific support to volunteers against the COVID-19 pandemic. We acknowledge that this support program is nothing compared to the efforts put by volunteers in building the open knowledge platform.

Support

The following type of support will be provided:

1. Reimbursement of vaccination costs
2. Sending of COVID-19 protection kits which will tentatively include
   1. N-95 masks without valves
   2. Surgical masks
   3. Pair of surgical gloves
   4. Disinfectant spray
   5. Hand-wash
   6. Sanitizer
   7. Digital thermometer (subject to availability)
   8. Pulse Oximeter (subject to availability)
3. Counseling by experts

Committee

A committee has been selected from volunteer community members who have taken a decision about the prioritization criteria to send support to volunteers. Most of the committee members are medical professionals and the decisions taken by them will guide the logistics team to distribute support as quickly and efficiently as possible.

The committee members are—

• Hrishikes
• Netha Hussain
• Gitartha.bordoloi
• Lahariyaniyathi
• Bodhisattwa

Apply

Request for support

We will try to send support first to those who are more vulnerable than others. The committee has set up some criteria for prioritization like -

1. volunteers with low economical condition,
2. volunteers who reside near the epicenter,
3. aged volunteers,
4. volunteers who have elderly people at home,
5. long term volunteers,
6. very active volunteers.

Contact us

The co-ordination and logistics are taken care of by CIS-A2K. Please email wmwmcis-india.org. You may also post on the talk page, however, please do not share personal or sensitive data publicly.