Covid19 Relief support

The current COVID-19 pandemic has pushed us all into unprecedented tough times and challenges. The lockdown has been a disastrous condition especially for the differently abled workers as most of them depend on daily wages to earn their living. Public transport, tourism and related activities have all been brought to a complete halt, severely affecting the livelihood of thousands, and the visually challenged workers in specific. The social distancing norms and lockdown regulations have made it impossible for our visually challenged brethren to venture out and carry out their work as they used to.

Lit the Light is always keen on empowering and helping our Visually challenged warriors. We realized the need for relief measures and by the last week of March started reaching out to families where a visually challenged person is the primary breadwinner. By the diligent efforts of our volunteers, government officials and friends, the scale of our efforts soon grew from a few dozens to over thousands of relief kits being distributed to 1400 families across Tamil Nadu so far and the mission continues. Each grocery kit we distribute consists of 18 essential items costing around ₹1200.

We would like to express our heartfelt and sincere gratitude to all the volunteers, IPS and IAS officers who were of great support for the distribution of relief kits and our corporate sponsors for their continued financial support.

Our sponsors Cognizant Outreach, International Justice Mission (IJM), Dreams Alive, Majestic Exports, YIBN and several well-wishers have continued to support us financially and made it possible for us to help through this pandemic situation to be supportive to the visually challenged beneficiaries.

The major challenge we faced was the safe distribution of the kits amid the social distancing norms. We followed the government guidelines on social distancing and had to avoid direct distribution by volunteers. Thankfully, IPS officers and IAS officers across Tamil Nadu came forward and pitched in their commendable efforts into reaching out and distributing the relief kits in the safest way possible. Our heart goes out for our real heroes who helped us amidst the pandemic. We are also grateful for the Thozhan & ProvokeU Foundation for their efforts into distributing the kits to families across Chennai.

The lockdown has been ongoing for 5 months with an uncertain future of when the pandemic will ease. Each kit is estimated to last for about a month for an average family. We are trying our best to keep reaching out to the huge number of requests we receive every day. Our team of volunteers continue to filter the requests, conduct background checks, gather funds and try to reach out to as many families as possible. But it remains a challenge to reach families residing in remote and rural areas.

We hope to serve as many as possible and keep supporting our differently-abled countrymen during these challenging times. This mission cannot be made possible without your support. Let us come together to support them in their time of need.