Since most work has moved online, World Vision field staff are engaging children and parents in online calls to not only promote health, hygiene and parenting messages, but also to enquire about their well-being and understand their concerns amidst the lockdown.
From seven cities (Delhi, Chennai, Mumbai, Kolkata, Guwahati, Hyderabad and Bangalore), we connected with a few children in their homes to understand how they, their families and communities were faring in these times.
The recurring issues that kids brought up were a lack of food and ration supplies, loss of wages because of unemployment of their parents, a general sense of boredom because of not being able to go out and play or meet their friends and worries about pending exams and missing out on school curriculum. Our children assured us that they were practicing social distancing but were worried about other people in their community who weren’t taking things as seriously.
On a positive note, a lot of them were happy that they now got to spend a lot of time with their parents and siblings. Many help out with household chores and are also getting time to pursue their hobbies like drawing, doing arts and craft or playing other indoor games with their siblings.