Food Items distributed by VK Arun Jyoti Prakalp

The Arun jyoti project of Vivekananda Kendra Kanyakumari has been running eight Poshan Kendra (Nutritional Centre) in some remote villages of Tirap and Longding districts of Arunachal Pradesh since 2018. The undernourished and malnourished children of these villages get nutritional food with some additional supplements in these centers. India Development and Relief Fund, USA is funding the program.  Since the lockdown because of Covid 19 outbreak, all the centers are closed. We were worried about the children and about their food supplements as all the children are poor. As it was not possible to call them to the centers as per protocol, we decided to distribute nutritious biscuits to the children. As it was not possible for us to reach to them because of lock down, we contacted all our Poshan Karyakartas and Local Karyakartas. We sent the biscuits to the villages and they collected and distributed to the children properly.

As the lock down got prolonged, we started getting news that there is scarcity of food grains and biscuits won’t be sufficient to feed those children. We then planned to send Rice and Musur Dal to the houses of every child enrolled in our Poshan Kendra, so that Khicidi can be prepared to feed them. We again contacted all our Karyakartas residing in the respective villages and have given them the responsibility to receive the food items sent by us and distribute them. We made two teams of Karyakartas for Tirap and Longding and they very dedicatedly distributed the items. We sent 1550 Kg Rice and 330 Kg Musur Dal to eight villages and each child got 5 kg of Rice and 1 Kg of Musur Dal. A total 310 enrolled children were benefitted. The detail report is as follows.

Because of lock down, it was really difficult to send the items to these remote villages, but the local transporters extended their help. Our Karyakartas informed the Chiefs of villages and other elders and involved them also in the program. In Khanu village the distribution program was arranged at the house of Sri Chingseng Wangham, The Chief of Khanu village. In all the villages, the distribution was very smooth. We instructed all our Karyakartas to avoid gatherings and to maintain physical distancing during the distribution of materials.

We would like to share one inspiring incident. Khanu village is 21 K.M. away from Wakka town. Our Karyakartas walked all the way to Wakka to collect the biscuits and returned carrying the heavy packets. Such was the level of dedication.