COVID-19 : Lets reflect and give back to our community

I was on a conference call on Thursday (19-Mar-20) with Vineeta, one of my colleagues and as per the trend these days, we started talking about Covid19 and what impact it has on our daily lives. I was amazed to hear her talk about how in her community in Boston, they are doing several things to support the community; like helping the elders who are frail and at greater risk to the virus; to ordering food from their local restaurants just so that they do not go out of business. Later that day, another senior colleague of mine Subhro Mallik and I spoke and he mentioned that we should consider ourselves lucky to have a job. Just a few days earlier, I had heard about the $100M fund Facebook had created to help small businesses. These events triggered a thought for me, what can you and me do to support our local communities and ecosystems in such challenging times.

I have given it a thought over the last few days and come up with this basic framework on what I think you and I can do to help:

1. How much can I contribute: I started by thinking about how much I can contribute. Clearly, I am not a rich tycoon to offer support from my trusts and charitable institutions, but lets not forget the power of networks. As Subhro mentioned, I am fortunate enough to be earning a respectable amount and thanks to my organisation, I still have a job. That itself gives me salary and I have my savings that is good enough to start with
2. Community #1 - HOME: I shall ensure that I do not let go of any domestic help, car cleaners, local laundry, gym trainers in this tough time. My domestic helps need to be made aware of the virus and precautions; and yes we may need them to be at home to keep us and their families safe, but I WILL NOT let any of their salaries take a hit. Irrespective of whether they deliver service to me or not, I will ensure that their salary and its commitment to them will be MET
3. Community #2 - APARTMENT COMPLEX: My apartment complex is doing an amazing job. We have an executive committee (EC) led by Deepak, Vasan etc. who are doing an amazing job of putting procedures to ensure safety of the residents. The little I VOW TO DO is that my monthly maintenance will continue and I shall ensure that I would support our EC ensure that our ecosystem of security staff, office staff are not let go and our maintenance amounts continue to fund these communities
4. Community #3 - Immediate office workers: At office we do have temporary workers and vendors like security staff, facilities, workers that service the food courts etc. Currently our management and leadership are busy protecting our clients and employees in these times but in a few weeks, I PROMISE TO initiate a dialogue with my management to fund some of these vendors and contract workers. Can I compensate thousands of such workers, clearly not but network effect can mean that even 20% of our 150k or so of India employees based can create a pool of INR 3 crores (INR 30M a month) which is enough I am sure
5. Community #4 - Online deliveries: Like a trend these days, my family and I do visit restaurants, order in from Swiggy, Amazon, Chaipoint etc. I SHALL WRITE TO the leadership of these firms and support or contribute towards any fund available to fund families of workers at such firms impacted by these times.

There are lots of indirect communities that my family and I touch and once I have achieved the above, I shall definitely think about them as well.

I am not sure how much of an impact I can make at such times, but just the above thought makes me feel satisfied because thinking is the 1st step followed by action followed by impact. This may be a long journey but I am sure we all can make it meaningful if we start thinking.

Do like this article and share it if it triggers a thought for you. In case you have any alternate thoughts or views, I am happy to learn.

To take care at such times, be safe and stay positive.