Power of Volunteering to Tame the Second Wave

"Need oxygen cylinder for my mother urgently!"

Three hours later, "We lost her thirty minutes ago as we couldn't get a cylinder!"

"Urgent need of an ICU bed, patient critical".

We have seen such fervent and desperate appeal for help coming from all across India. The second wave of pandemic has been deadly and super fast in spreading. Sparing no city, no region or no cast. Taming the second wave has been a challenge. Given the population density in the cities, the health infrastructure could not tame the tide. But collective spirit and efforts of the people of India did it!

This story brings out the collective power of volunteering in taking the monstrous second wave head on. There are numerous volunteer groups and organisations doing a tremendous job. Documenting their effort may take time. But this short story is restricted to the efforts by BITS Pilani alumni who rose to the occasion and took the bull by the horn. The battle is continuing but the volunteers remain spirited.

Whether it is to search for life-saving resources in real time or providing oxygen concentrators or setting up ICU beds in rural areas, BITSAA (BITS Alumni Association) volunteers are doing it all. Many students of BITS Pilani have also come forward and contributing their time and energy. We are overwhelmed with their support.

In the words of Navkaran Singh who leads a team of more than 800 BITSAA volunteers for providing real-time response to SOS requests for life saving resources, "We started the Covid relief initiative with five volunteers to help fellow BITSians with requests related to hospital beds, oxygen cylinders, medicines, Plasma donations, etc. In the last 12 days, we have resolved 1000+ requests from a variety of sources. What started as an alumni initiative has turned into a war against Covid."

"There are daily planning and review meetings going on every night from 10-12. The kind of enthusiasm of the team is infectious. If you feel that you have seen the most enthusiastic team in your life, please join our WhatsApp group for a day and see the passion of the volunteers to resolve each and every request. It seems like everyone's life depends on that request. We have seen more deaths in the last 12 days than what we have seen in our lifetime. What remains the same every day is the enthusiasm to save another life. Thank you to all the volunteers and all the Alumni who have supported us in whatever way possible. Your small contribution has saved a lot of lives in the last two weeks." 

Go Navkaran go! He is not alone. Alumni across all batches and geographies have come forward to do their bit. Following table summarises some of the initiatives by BITSAA volunteers. The list includes links to respective websites where you can browse further details and contribute if you feel like. We would love to augment the list based on readers' inputs. Please feel free to reach out to us on hbindia@gmail.com .

Initiative	Purpose	BITSian Volunteers in Action
BITSAA Covid Relief Imitative	To help fellow BITSians/families find pan-India resources for hospital beds/ICUs, oxygen cylinders and concentrators, ambulances and medicines in real time	Akash, Saksham, Kalyan, Chandrakala, Sneha, Rahul, Arkapriya, Kathesh, Palak Oswal, Subham, Kunal, Srikar, Ankit, Mayank Anchilia, Navkaran and team of 120+ active volunteers including students working 24x7
HelpUPBreathe	To provide oxygen concentrators and cylinders to the needy in Jhansi, Kanpur, Lucknow and other towns in UP	Siddharth Seth, Pratyush Rawal, Rishabh Mehrotra, Astha Dhayal and team
Breathe-India.org	To supply oxygen concentrators to the needy across India	Sharat Chaudhary, Anu Khendry, Pankaj Vaish, Arun Chatterjee, Vinita and team
Nirmaan.org	To provide 200 oxygen concentrators and 150 ICU beds in 15 villages in Telangana	Mayur Patnala and team
MOFA Medical Oxygen for all.	To support the medical oxygen needs of tier-2 and tier-3 cities and towns across India	Anish Sinha, Anchal Goel, and a team of eight volunteers.
OxygenForIndia.org	To deploy 40,000 reusable oxygen cylinders and 20,000 oxygen concentrators in 20 urban and rural centers across India.	Diwakar Pingle, Ramanan and team
Pilani Atmanirbhar Resource Centre (PARC)	During Covid, to provide oxygen concentrators and allied equipment to the needy in Pilani, Rajasthan. PARC otherwise works for community development around Pilani.	Sunil Nanda and team
Donate Plasma (Postscript 18 May: Since discontinued as per ICMR's announcement)	To mobilise plasma donors and connect with the needy. Being done in association with Dhoondh.org and NSS, BITS Pilani.	A team of BITSAA Volunteers and students
Oxygen Concentrators for BITSians and families	To provide oxygen concentrators for BITSians, families and the needy in Jaipur and Hyderabad.	Kailash Gupta (Jaipur) and Ashok Agarwal and Sanjay Khendry (Hyderabad) and teams
HyderabadNeedsOxygen	To provide oxygen supply to the needy in Hyderabad in association with Nirmaan.	Praneeth, Sai Rama, Anshool, Venky, Avinash Reddy and team
Oxygen Plant for Pilani	To set up a dedicated oxygen plant for Birla Sarvajanik Hospital in Pilani	Hanuman Bengani, Rakesh Sharma, Sanjay Guha Arun Kumar, Jayant Sogani and team

Am sure similar stories by alumni of other institutes and friends coming together are aplenty. Collectively we can tame the second wave successfully. We will.

Postscript: 18 May: Plasma drive has since been discontinued based on ICMR's recent announcement. Thanks K Srikanth for pointing it out.

Postscript 20th May: The work of BITSAA volunteers has been covered by the media. See the picture below from Amar Ujala, a Hindi daily in UP.

BBC Radio has also featured the efforts of our Volunteers' Relief Support Initiative. 

Postscript 29th Dec 22:

"During the Covid pandemic when numerous people lost their lives, Ram Nagina Tripathi was responsible for ensuring that the departed were provided a respectable final journey including cremation. There were long stretches of time during the peak period when he stationed himself at the crematorium to ensure that human beings got a respectable send off. Ram Nagina Tripathi is from the 1978-83 batch of BITS Pilani. He recently retired as Chief Engineer from the Uttar Pradesh Government. "

We salute the spirit of volunteering during Covid by Tripathi.

We close with a quotation by Mahatma Gandhi who said that "The best way to find yourself is to lose yourself in the service of others". 

Once again hat tip to each of the volunteer-led initiatives featured above and to countless others who are not featured in our story.

Together we will. Jai Hind.

    - Harsh-the-Ghumakkad/ Secunderabad/ 17th May 2021

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