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'Lasting impact will come from an aware and educated community': Sanjana Sanghi & Sudarshan Suchi

COVID-warriors, a term which in the pandemic year, has given many, power to fight the unseen enemy, i.e, the novel coronavirus, and many, the drive and motivation to step up and contribute to society. Unlike the front-line warriors such as doctors, nurses, police, and the medical staff, the COVID-warriors can be anyone who feels that […]

COVID-warriors, a term which in the pandemic year, has given many, power to fight the unseen enemy, i.e, the novel coronavirus, and many, the drive and motivation to step up and contribute to society. Unlike the front-line warriors such as doctors, nurses, police, and the medical staff, the COVID-warriors can be anyone who feels that humanity needs to be kept alive and robust at tough times like these. NewsX’s special series, NewsX A-List, proudly hosted two such warriors. Save The Children is an organisation that focuses on dealing with the plight of the children in the pandemic. Sanjana Sanghi, a well-known actress, and Sudarshan Suchi, the CEO of Save The Children, are working vehemently for this noble cause.

Sanjana Sanghi, on the motivation and drive to work with the organisation, said, “I have been working with children in the areas of education and empowerment since I was a student at Delhi University in 2014. I saw people coming up with various resources to help each other during the pandemic, but the scenario was seen only in the cities. The remote areas and the hinterlands were being neglected, not consciously, but by how things were panning out. Save The Children are doing an incredible work where they tap into aspects that people don’t even know exist.”

Sudarshan Suchi, CEO, Save The Children, elaborating on how the pandemic is impacting children, said, “The list runs long. Even though the disease, in particular, did not impact the children, but everything around it has hit them. Whatever could go wrong is going wrong with vulnerable children – who live on the brink of society – their caregivers are weak in terms of livelihood, security, and network. Child safeguarding became a big issue. The school was a big source of nutrition through the mid-day meal is no longer functional.” Sudarshan also highlighted the lack of space for the children living in slum areas who cannot follow the social distancing norms, even if they want to. He gave an example of a girl from Kolkata whose parents got infected, and the only idea of quarantine was that the whole family had to move out. “The whole family started getting ostracized due to the lack of basic facilities like water,” said Mr. Suchi.

Explaining the mechanism of their organisation, Sudarshan said, “Our efforts have been three-fold. Firstly, we try to be aware of any kind of distress calls from our community mobilisers and others. We ensure that they get safe health care. Secondly, we have been working with communities to build their capacities around the knowledge of COVID and hygiene. Thirdly, we are also focusing on the continuity of nutrition and education of the children who are not able to cope up with this extraordinary situation.” The digital gap is glaring and worrying since everything has switched to online. Save The Children is working against reducing this digital gap. “I would rate the time and engagement with the children far higher than any support,” he added.

Sanjana is also working very passionately with the organisation at the forefront. Stressing on the need for education for children, she said, “The effects of the pandemic are both short-term and long-term. The long-term effects of the pandemic will impact the nation at large. The children’s right to personality development, sense of self, dignity, and the right to learn is being taken away from them due to lack of infrastructure. To interweave digital learning into the learning process in such areas is a huge challenge. We are especially focusing on the girl-child as they experience greater neglect.” Sanjana has been associated with such works “deeply.” Starting from a teacher volunteer in a small NGO, she realised the value of her education for hundreds of underprivileged children. “Being a nerd also helped me realise the importance of education,” she said. She has been associated with multiple organisations in the past.

Sudarshan Sanghi appreciated the efforts made by Sanjana and told how she chased the organisation to play the right-front role for the cause, unlike other public figures who the organisations run behind to get more reach. Discussing his aspiration from the road ahead and the future of India, he said, “Ultimately lasting impact will come from an aware and educated community. We are focusing on helping the government help deliver help efficiently. We are also building a team of pediatricians who can deconstruct the implication of pandemic on children and get insights on how to take care of them.” Mr. Sanghi ended with discussing a three-prone approach which involved short-term – Survival, middle-term – Education and Continuity, and long-term – Future Employment and preparing children for the changes. He also stated that across all dimensions and one of the top agendas is Mental Health of the Children.

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