Ensuring Critical Services for Vulnerable Families in Partnership with Public Health Professionals and Development Practitioners

For the poor, whose vulnerability to disease is compounded by their deprivation, we know that poverty, powerlessness and disease combine to form a vicious cycle. Unemployment due to the pandemic was seen disproportionately in the informal sector, which largely employs the poor. And because of the unstable, contractual nature of their work, the vulnerable are also disproportionately at risk of being exposed to COVID-19 because their jobs require them to leave their homes, use public transport and be in close contact with other people. The Nobel Laureate Abhijit Banerjee rightly highlighted their plight in an interview during the pandemic, “the poor are not just losing their livelihood; they are also at a potentially higher risk of losing their lives”.

Shanti Ashram and ICPH understood early in the pandemic that COVID-19 would impact not just children and breadwinners but entire families. Interventions were thus designed to ensure that the entire family was cared for and provided with critical services. This holistic response that prioritises all members of the household has four key areas of focus: