AIILSG’s contributions and innovations for COVID-19 relief, resilience building

include the pandemics, and has been the knowledge-hub for the team. For updating knowledge, AIILSG’s Centre for RMNCH+A deputed its experts to a course conducted by World Health Organization (WHO). And subsequently an in-house training was organized for all our field staff immediately after that. Our strategic planners decided all possible actions by field staff. An immediate need identified in the initial stages of the COVID-19 incidence was to demystify it, and preempt mis-information and mass-panic on the issue. Considering extremely low literacy levels among the disadvantaged populations AIILSG works with at the grassroots, a key challenge was to demystify COVID-19 in terms and ways easily understandable by even illiterates and children. This led to development of innovative IEC – Pictorial Posters, Tribal Folk Songs, which is visual in nature and its decoding is educationstatus neutral. The Centre for RMNCH+A undertook extensive web-based capacity building of the team members. The Centre is running a COVID-19 help-desk analogous since March-end last year. Crystallizing new specialisation of AIILSG: Mental Health

The detrimental impact of COVID-19 towards mental health, especially of children, started emerging soon after April 2020. For the under-privileged populations AIILSG works with, the impact was more severe due to combination of various factors such as inherent poverty-perpetuatedvulnerability, uncertainties, etc. Counselling of children and parents has been a part of the CSRK model since the beginning. It was further invigorated with COVID-19 context. AIILSG also has been keeping the issue on radar while liaising with the government machinery so that it also emphasizes its importance through own channels. The Centre developed innovative customized training module and IEC comprising 74 posters in 5 sub-themes of mental health: 1. Potential symptoms, 2. Mentally healthy child, 3. Parenting: Do’s and Don’ts for child mental health, 4. When to consult a mental health professional for a child’s mental health, and 5. Worrisome child behavior during COVID pandemic. Dissemination of the innovative IEC of AIILSG was ensured by displaying these posters in large size at prominent places like walls near Gram Panchayats, key anchor locations in slums, SRK and of houses of children etc. International Centre for Women-in-Deprivation

Gendered-significance of the effort was contextualised and defined for AIILSG’s ICEQUI-T team, which was enabled by the Head of the AIILSG’s ICWID (She is also a co-author of this article). This aspect has special significance as many of the field areas involve communities with conservative gender norms. Generally, COVID-19 has its impact on increasing gender disparities and gender discrimination. Increase in violence (in all forms) against women and girls emerged as a shadow pandemic in hindsight of COVID-19 pandemic. The team took conscious efforts to enable gender equality. ♦ Many of AIILSG’s COVID-19 warriors / change makers/ enablers at the grassroots being women has been an instrumental factor in uprooting gender stereotypes and enabling gender equality. This has been a consistent and cross cutting endeavour across all initiatives undertaken by the team, whereby preferably atleast 50 per cent team members are women ♦ Sensitisation and capacity building sessions were conducted for the COVID-19 warriors on the aspects of gender equality and taking this process further in their respective communities ♦ There has been consistent endeavour across field locations to sensitise community including women and men/ girls and boys on the aspects of women and girls safety,continuation of education of girls (with counselling to parents to pre-empt any school dropouts of girls), re-enrolment of schooldropout girls, age-appropriate Sexuality Education (eg good touch, bad touch, information on helpline numbers), imbibing messages of equal treatment for girls/ women and inculcating good behavioural practices in children for the same from a young age through mentorship by these change makers and creating awareness in community about gender equality by observing International and National days of significance such as ‘International Women’s Day’, ‘National Women’s Day’, ‘Mothers’

AIILSG’s SRKs only source of continued education for many disadvantaged children

Day’, ‘National Girl Child Day’, and similar other occasions ♦ Another hitherto neglected aspect in disadvantaged communities (slums, tribal and rural areas) is promoting education in ‘science’ and as career path for girls and overall lack of ‘scientific temperament’ in girls and women which is also linked with their poor educational status. Understanding the crucial significance of this and building scientific temper in children from the young age, an innovation of ‘MY SDG4 and Innovations with Disadvantaged Children’ = “Mentoring by Youth for enabling SDG4 & Innovations with Disadvantaged Children” is initiated with aim of ‘Enabling Innovations with Disadvantaged Children by Fostering Scientific Temper & Innovations Culture from a Young Age’. The idea is to make ‘Learning Science and (basic) Technology Fun’, promote ‘learning by doing’ with children and foster the culture of ‘innovations’ from an early age. Simple low cost to no cost science experiments were demonstrated and conducted by the children (including girls) and to promote ‘learning by doing’, ‘Science Kits’ were disseminated for use by children through Shikshan Ranjan Kendras. ♦ A crucial factor being their role central not just for relief but as repository of scientific COVID-19 knowledge and for COVID-19 resilience building too. ♦ Local women trained by AIILSG in livelihoods interventions went a long way in dismantling gender stereotypes. Centre for Rural and Tribal Development and for Empowerment of Denotified and Nomadic Tribes

The centre developed a modus operandi for AIILSG’s efforts at the grassroots as well as supporting the local government efforts in various villages. These included: ♦ “Gram Suraksha Day”: AIILSG’s trained Shikshan Mitras helped villagers to organize this special day to do sanitization, distribution of food material, establishing quarantine and isolation centre in the village for restricting movement of population. ♦ Use of songs in local dialect: to create awareness about COVID-19, addressing vaccination hesitancy and to promote vaccination in community. In many project areas, the dialect of the tribes is different than the so-called mainstream dialect. Eg in 46 field action villages in AIILSG, the predominant understanding is through the local Bhil and Pawara dialects. ♦ Enabled outreach of government agencies for COVID-19 tracking and vaccination, distribution of relief material by the government including food grains, sanitizers, soaps, school books etc. ♦ Relief for 190 starving families from Denotified and Nomadic Tribes (DNTs): The DNTs are among the most marginalised in the world and India. AIILSG’s ICEQUI-T team has been making humble efforts for their empowerment. With traditional livelihoods dwindling very fast and having hardly any skills to survive in the modern world, food insecurity has been a key issue faced by the DNTs. Their hunger and starvation issues got seriously aggravated further during the COVID-19 induced lockdown. It was feared that the situation will have especially detrimental impact on the children from the DNTs. When the AIILSG ICEQUI-T team got to know about it, it took up the task of identifying the families in extreme poverty and need for food grain support in one of its field action areas: DNT settlements in Shirur Kasar taluka in Beed district. It provided relief to 190 DNT families 3 DNT settlements: Adarsh Nagar, Uttam Nagar and Ram Nagar. Each of the 190 families were provided a packet of dry-food-ration sufficient for 15 days. , which included: Rice, Bajra/ Jawar, Tuar Dal- pigeon pea, Edible Oil, Spices, Chilli Powder and ground Turmeric. As the task was extremely challenging considering the strict lockdown measures, the local government machinery was approached. The local government machinery responded very well and provided all necessary support. It is worthwhile to highlight and appreciate that the initiative was launched at the hands of Tehsildar, Shirur Kasar and Chief Executive officer, Shirur Kasar Nagar Panchayat. International Centre for Differently Abled

An important set of disadvantaged neglected even now in COVID-19 context are the ‘differently abled’. The closure of blind girls’ schools had constrained dissemination of an innovation of AIILSG’s ICEQUI-T of Comprehensive Sexuality Education for blind girls and women. A need was identified for innovative, personalised dissemination tools for differently abled. This led to development of the Khushi Doll soft toy. It is designed by AIILSG team in such a way that an easily accessible and replaceable pen drive within the Khushi doll can be loaded with audio-message on wide range on developmental and health aspects, including COVID-19. The AIILSG innovation of ‘Khushi’ doll has special significance as it will enable accessing information by the blinds girls and women who are not ‘braille literate’ and have no avenue for accessing scientifically correct information, further it will also help transcending socio-cultural taboo associated with imparting Sexual and Reproductive Health Education to all types of differently abled girls including blind girls. AIILSG looks ahead to serve the cause better by reaching out to more and more differently abled through its foster-daughter- ‘Khushi’, which literally means ‘Happiness’. [Note- All the interventions followed the respective COVID-19 protocol during implementation.]

Recovery has to be environment positive

Citizens are increasingly becoming aware of the significance of clean and healthy living environments over anything else. In the post-CovId world, the pressure is expected to mount further. Ensuring a clean and healthy environment is a complex task and requires governmental attention in multiple aspects of urban governance and development. Cities can do so by making the right choices in policy-making for enhancing environmental health, improving air quality, water and sanitation facilities, waste management, and conserving biodiversity

Covid-19 came as a shocker for cities. A majority of them were ill-equipped and not prepared to deal with a disaster of this magnitude. it caused havoc. Health infrastructure in cities collapsed, economic activities suffered, and people in informal settlements or migrant populations faced an acute shortage of basic amenities while dealing with the effects of the crisis. Local governments having sparse resources were impacted severely. Yet cities managed to bounce back. They returned to normalcy with an eye on the rear-view mirror for learning from their mistakes. Now the cities are creating policies for recovery, and most of them are focusing on green recovery. it is a crucial time for the transition towards climate-smart approaches for rebuilding cities as the policies cities make today will decide their course of development for years to come. The Pandemic has demonstrated the abilities of local governments and communities to mitigate the health and economic impacts of health disasters. The world has witnessed many innovative initiatives and solutions from cities for building local resilience to tackle any such health crisis in the future. Cities are also building resilience strategies keeping in mind immediate environmental and impending climate change impacts.

The primary focus has to be on decorbonising urban activities, including business and economic activities and optimal energy use in urban operations. According to the Climate Emergency, Urban opportunity report, low-carbon measures could cut emissions from urban buildings, transport, materials use and waste by almost 90 per cent by 2050; support 87 million jobs in 2030 and 45 million jobs in 2050, and generate a return of at least USd 23.9 trillion by 2050. This will make cities resilient and build their long-term sustainable development plan in which their economic activities are not dependent on fossil-fuel use.

Green reboot

Covid-19 has proved to be the biggest disruptor of economic activities, infrastructure development and achievement of global goals in the last 100 years. Cities have gradually restarted their urban systems, and now, they will also have to make strategies for achieving global goals. Cities are slowly shifting their focus from short-term pandemic relief measures to long-term plans for building resilience without compromising their development agenda.

Local governments have to take essential decisions to allocate limited resources effectively for decarbonising economic and business activities. in the post-Covid world, ULBs face a shortage of funds due to the impact on revenue generation and transfer of existing funds towards Covid relief measures.

Further, cities will also have to make sure that every action is inclusive for achieving the global targets. The United Nations has declared the “decade of Action” to ensure the SdGs are achieved within the next ten years. Since most of these goals depend on how cities perform on different parameters, it will lean considerably on urban policies directed towards green recovery plans.

The ‘Green Reboot’ report estimates that if cities in 21 emerging markets, studied by the international Finance Corporation of the World Bank prioritise climate-smart growth in their recovery plans, they stand to gain as much as USd seven trillion in investments and could create 144 million new jobs by 2030.

Protecting the environmental ecosystem in cities is also a priority for local governments in the postCovid world. Experts have suggested opting for nature-based solutions to mitigate the negative impacts of

Ranjit S Chavan President, AIILSG

emission-induced climate change events to address urban issues. The report also says that nature-based solutions can provide up to 37 per cent of the emissions reductions needed by 2030 to keep global temperature increases under 2 degrees Celsius while improving air quality and promoting people’s well-being. Nature-based solutions could also improve natural ecosystems that underpin sectors that rely on nature for inputs—such as construction, agriculture, and food and beverage—that generate $44 trillion or half of global GdP.

Global learning

Many cities worldwide used technology for containing the spread of the virus and providing relief to citizens. Technological integration was also used for assisting local businesses to thrive during the lockdown and curfew days. The central learning was that cities and local governments have to be adaptive, agile, and resourceful to integrate new systems in their operation and management framework. A significant shift has been seen in the transportation, energy efficiency and housing sector.

Globally, the Pandemic had a devastating impact on informal settlements. Migrants either have to leave cities or live with improper civic services. The Pandemic has again highlighted a sharp disparity in access to civic services between the rich and the poor. Therefore, the focus of cities should be on making delivery of

The ‘Green reboot’ report estimates that if cities in 21 emerging markets studied by IFC prioritise climate-smart growth in their recovery plans, they stand to gain as much as Usd seven trillion in investments and could create 144 million new jobs by 2030

urban services equitable. in technology adaptation, cities have to make sure people of all classes have access to digital services through accessible common service centres if they do not own internet-enabled devices. Embedding digital technologies in governance shall also include citizen participation, data safety, and responsive governance systems.

The Pandemic has also impacted how people work in urban settings. Such changes were seen worldwide. With people working from homes or going to offices on alternate days, cities have begun looking at the impacts on public transport use. The transport choices have also seen a shift in favour of private vehicles. Cities around the world have seen a decline in the use of public buses and metro trains. Keeping this in mind, cities in the developed world have built more exclusive spaces for cycling and walking. Some European cities are working on the concept of 15-minute cities where people can walk or cycle to places they need to travel for their daily needs within 15 minutes. The mix-land use and importance of public spaces in cities have come to the fore. And, it will be reflected in the way city make their development plans for the future. it has become clear that cities are prioritising environmental balancing with development to create a cushion for cities and citizens to absorb the impacts of imminent disasters and pandemics. And, to make this a reality, cities will have to improve their functional capacity and enhance their access to updated knowledge and resources.