Activity Report 2021-22
The chronic nature of coronavirus outbreak and lack of success in treatment and cure has created an environment that is crucial for mental wellbeing. The outbreak has sparked with an overwhelming amount of information on news which WHO termed as “infodemic”. Although with vaccination of a huge population in India, the number of daily reported cases have come down drastically, but situation is still not very good.
Covid-19 pandemic has caused large scale distress with the wave sending many into a fragile health care system with acute shortage of essentials such as hospital beds, oxygen and medicines. Covid 19 has killed many thousands of people and destroyed economy all over the world. While we are all united in this fight against COVID, it is crucial that we all do our best to help out as many people we can.
The Loomba Foundation’s Education Programme:
The Loomba Foundation continued to educate children of 20 poor widows in Shri Jagiri Lal Loomba Memorial Govt. Senior Secondary School, Dhilwan, Punjab. To date, we have educated over 10,000 children of poor widows in all 30 states in India.
Widows Empowerment Projects:
Project Dignity in partnership with Rotary India Literacy Mission
The Loomba Foundation is currently running a project to provide skills training to over 4000 widows, divorcees or single parent mothers in five states in India, including Delhi, Mumbai, West Bengal, Bihar and Madhya Pradesh. I am pleased to inform you that the project in Bihar has now been completed for empowering 570 widows. Furthermore, the projects in the States of West Bengal, Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh and Delhi are still continuing.
This project is being run in partnership with the Rotary India Literacy Mission (RILM). 1696 (January 2022 Report) beneficiaries have already been trained in different vocations, like -Tailoring, Beautician, Pickle-Papad Making, Candle Making, GDA, Data Entry Operator, Hospitality & Customer Care domains.
To date, the Loomba Foundation has empowered over 12,000 impoverished widows in 16 States in India, who received training in tailoring for two months and a foot-operated sewing machine on completion of the training, free of cost.
Project Jeeva of the Loomba Foundation to Empower Widows in Sohna Block, Gurugram in association with Navjyoti India Foundation and District Legal Services Authority.
A Zoom Meeting to interact with all the beneficiaries under Project Jeeva, was organized on 2nd June 2021, Wednesday at 11:30 am. The Topic of the session was – Training on Talent and Qualities. Main objective of the session was to build self confidence in these widows so that they can fight with the current situation and come out of the comfort zone to become self-reliant and earn their livelihood. Some of the widows shared their experiences on how this project is helping them.
Mrs. Seema Jaiswal, a motivational speaker from Navjyoti India Foundation gave a very good presentation to these widows with the help of some videos and motivational stories. She was able to convey the message to all these widows to build confidence inside them and do something significant, which gives them reward and recognition. Officials from Navjyoti India Foundation and District Legal Services Authority attended this zoom session.
In addition to above two virtual meetings, under the project Jeeva more weekly workshops were organized in association with Navjyoti India Foundation on 15th July, 22nd July, 29th July and 5th August 2021.
International Widows Day 2021 events in India.
23rd June, 2021 Dhilwan, Punjab: The Loomba Foundation held an event at Shri Jagiri Lal Loomba Memorial Govt. Senior Secondary School, Dhilwan in Punjab on Wednesday,
In another event in Delhi, a webinar was organised by Navjyoti India Foundation in association with the Loomba Foundation and District Legal Services Authority to motivate widows in becoming self-reliant to mark International Widows Day. Many widows participated in this webinar from different villages of Sohna block in District Gurgaon.
Ms. Chandni Bedi, Director of the Navjyoti Foundation briefed widows about the Jeeva Project that it is a joint initiative of the Loomba Foundation, Navjyoti India Foundation and District Legal Services Authority. Mr. Atul Palta, Mr. Pawan Kumar and Mr. Hemant Kumar from the Loomba Foundation participated in the webinar. Mr. Atul Palta, Director of the Loomba Foundation briefed widows about the birth and background of the International Widows Day and why it is celebrated every year. Ms. Seema Jaiswal gave a session to widows on the subject – “Who Am I?”. Ms. Rekha Soni gave a brief on various Government schemes available for women. On this occasion ration kit and hygiene kit was distributed to widows who came to attend this workshop.