Sisters in India South Province

It has been a couple of months since we are forced to change our ways of working, praying and living. A crucial time, a time of fear, anxiety, uncertainty, the scariest time we have ever lived in our entire life. A global pandemic like this has presented a country like India with disturbing choices between life and livelihood, between possible deaths from hunger and possible deaths from the deadly virus. The vulnerabilities vary; the economic impact of a complete lockdown has drained the common man of all his resources. Unemployment, thousands of stranded migrant workers all around the country, return of expatriates from various foreign countries etc. are economic liability on the government as well as on the citizens. To be a ray of hope to people during this stormy time is the greatest challenge we as religious face. Every contribution is valuable whether spiritual, financial or medical. So the sisters of the India South Province initiated various measures to reach out to the people in order to ease their burden.

The most significant contribution to this cause is that our only hospital of the province in Maharashtra is set up as the Dedicated Covid Hospital since 12 April 2020. 90 staff including 7 of our sisters is providing health care to the infected patients. So far 58 patients were admitted in the hospital.
We realized that the pressing need of the time is food. Most of our communities purchased provision, packed it and distributed to people living in economically poor areas. Some of us cooked food and provided to stranded migrants.
In remote areas sisters took initiative to contact the government authorities and arranged voluntary workers to be the mediators between people and authorities. We provided stationary items for school children to support their studies at home, besides their online studies. Some of the sisters give counselling and encouraging messages to the people in distress through social media.
A lot of fundamental changes need to be made in our existence.