By Suzanne Khan
Through our global showcase and learning platform, Youth for Sustainability Dialogues #Y4SD, the youth are put in the driver’s seat. Initiated in October 2020 by Connecting Dreams Foundation in collaboration with MasterPeace Global, Global Network for Sustainable Development, and Helping Hand International, organized its twelfth session on 10th May 2021.
The focus of the session was COVID-19 Vaccination. The expert for the session was Linda van der Burg-Witte, Professor in Medical Education , Member of Regional Task Force and Crisis Team , Netherlands and also a core team member of Masterpeace. The session was moderated by Mark Fonseca Rendeiro, Global Core Team of Masterpeace.
Ms. Linda van der Burg-Witte
She is a professor of Medical Education and a member of the regional task force and crisis team of the Netherlands. She is also a member of the core team at Masterpeace. She and her team train students to become good medical doctors. Talking about her reflection of the previous year of the pandemic, Ms. Linda mentioned that it was a roller coaster not only for her but for everyone and is still a roller coaster ride. Specifically talking about India, she expressed her sigh at the whole situation. As a healthcare professional, it was indeed a very big challenge for her in the Netherlands and also in the region she works. Till now, the whole healthcare system is still confused and is searching for what and how of the virus. However, looking back at these 15 months, it’s still better than earlier. She then went on to talk about how important information is and how it reaches out to a wide range of audience.
Over the course of 15 months, it’s due to information that the medical professionals had got to know about the basics of the disease and how to cure it and treat those who are infected from it. It was on the basis of the information that she could train other medical students and nurses to help patients recover from this disease. During this whole journey, the biggest lesson for her was togetherness. It is because of shared resources, knowledge, experiences and the care we show for each other that we can get through this pandemic. It cannot be one man’s effort. This pandemic made us understand that the hierarchy doesn’t work but rather coming together and facing these new as well as uncertain times together works wonders. Also, she mentioned that we should take care and not take unethical decisions during this pandemic because it can hamper a lot of sharing of resources, experiences and what not.
Presently, in these times there is a lot of information surrounding the virus but then we have to be careful about which information to trust and to check if it’s reliable and not believe everything that we read. It’s important to do our own research and then make empirical decisions regarding it.
Participants for the session
Kailash Kumar, MasterPeace Karachi
Kailash Kumar is the head of Masterpeace in Karachi, Pakistan. He talked about his experience during the COVID times. Pakistan is a very small country on the map with a population of 22 crore people which comprises 67% of youth and 43% of old people. This indicates that Pakistan is one of the countries with a rich population dividend. It was on 5th March, 2020 that the first case of COVID-19 was reported in the country. As per him, COVID teaches a lot about the importance of healthcare and education systems. There are a lot of challenges that Pakistan is facing due to negligence of people, lack of readiness of the paramedical staff and poor healthcare infrastructure. However, as per him with a positive approach we can have positive results along with making people aware about the virus in a positive manner. He concluded by saying that coronavirus is a problem of people and not of countries and we must deal with it with this approach.
Dhruv, Helping Hand International, Gujarat
Dhruv along with his friends made a task force and divided the work by making different committees such as Plasma committee, emergency committee, Hospital Committee, Tiffin Committee and so on. The team then contacted some influencers in the city and shared some posters in the city with the help of their model as well as influencer friends. With this, their numbers were circulated in the city and then came the main struggle of finding beds, oxygen cylinders as well as vaccines for the people. The team wholeheartedly worked on ground as well as through social media to help people. The team worked round the clock to find beds for the patients. Dhruv lost a lot of people around him due to COVID but still his team didn’t lose hope and kept on trying to help people during these times.
Rahul Agrahari, God Gives Everything Organization
Rahul works in the legal and administrative department. He and his team helps poor people through food donation drives, providing oxygen cylinders. The team connects with people through whatsapp and shares the details through whatsapp. As soon as the team receives a call, they reach out to that individual and try to help that individual in the best way possible. He ended by saying that he hopes we all cope up with this pandemic together.
Vasu Gupta and Umama Khursheed, Connecting Dreams Foundation
‘Big Change comes from hundreds of tiny steps and all of them do matter’ quoted by Umama, President of Jamia Millia Islamia CDF Chapter. Umama began by stating that there is a very severe second wave confronting India. So, Umama and her team came up with an initiative to help in the best way possible so as to become the change makers. A total of five organisations came together in this initiative and the team helps people who are in urgent need of oxygen cylinders. The team is called Help and Feed Association, United for Humanity. The team is presently serving in Kanpur and helping people there.
The team is pooling funds to purchase portable oxygen cylinders which are called canes by the team. These cylinders are then distributed to the needy people and that too free of cost. Presently, the team has distributed 100+ portable oxygen canes across two states of India, Uttar Pradesh and New Delhi. The team has been working 24*7 to help individuals across and for this CDF has also initiated a COVID task force for the same reason.
Overall, the event ended with a question answer round and proved to be really beneficial for the participants in clearing out their doubts related to the virus and it’s mutants.
