I have never worked strictly on the ground with any developing country. And I have never been to India before. Having the chance to learn about India through the lens of Indian women and their daily struggles rather than through the lens of incredible Indian cultural heritage is an invaluable experience.
I am working directly with a CEO, Praseed Kunam, through Zoom meetings. Me being in the US and her being in New Delhi in itself is a challenge with a 10.5 hour time difference. While I am waking up to start my day, Praseeda is already wrapping up hers. In addition, Internet connection proves to be a challenge. While Internet penetration in India is on the level of 50%, and the coverage is good in New Delhi, have rains very often disrupt our connection.
End of July and August are the rainiest months in New Delhi with a monsoon season in its full blossom (more about connectivity in my upcoming blog post).
How Covid-19 affected NGO and people it serves?
The Samhita's Development Network operates in the four poorest states of Central India: Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and Bihar.
There have been at least 1,803,600 confirmed cases of the corona-virus in India (and numbers are still growing), with Uttar Pradesh (92ths + cases) and Bihar (57ths + cases) significantly affected out of the four districts where the Samhita's Development Network operates.
Reported cases in India (latest data of the Ministry of Health)
In the early stage of the pandemics, the government took strict measures to slow down the spread of the virus by announcing a nationwide lock down. However, a lock down was especially hard on the poorest Indians But the measures were brutally hard on the poorest Indians. Therefore, some restrictions were lifted to help restart the economy.
The operations of the Samhita's Development Network were affected by the pandemics as relies heavily on in-person collections performed by its field agents that visit the villages on a bi-weekly basis. Due to pandemics, its field agents stop visiting the villages due to infection threat. Thus, the loan collection and repayment significantly decreased - from around 85% before Covdi-19 to 50% from the start of pandemics. So can new digital solutions help organisation and its clients in that case?