DiMaRF, a Pune based NGO provides more than 80,000 food packets to daily wagers amid lockdown

Pune, April 12, 2020: With the ongoing lockdown in the light of COVID-19, most of us locked down hoarded up for Netflix and chill sessions and have adapted to working from home, while a large part of our community is going to bed without knowing if they will get a meal for next day or not. Workers at construction sites, shops, rickshaw-pullers, and other daily wagers have no source of income and thus leaving them with no means to earn themselves a meal, the bare minimum required to stay alive.

DiMaRF (Disaster Management and Research Foundation), a Pune based NGO, has initiated “Operation COVID-19” under the stewardship of visionary leader Col. PP Marathe, Co-founder, and Former President, DiMaRF to address this issue and help the most affected ones to navigate through this distress. Under the initiative “Operation COVID-19”, DiMaRF is feeding around 500 workers, 3 times a day at 8 Relief Camps across the city for the remaining Lockdown period, starting from 1st April. The number of dependents may increase in the near future and the initiative is likely to continue even after the “Lockdown” is lifted.

They have coordinated with Gurudwaras and few Hotel owners for cooking the food and are providing them the supply of raw materials (Rice, Daal, Vegetables, Cooking Oil, Spices, etc.) and the diligent and vibrant volunteers of the organization are managing flurry of activities like buying the raw material at wholesale rate, cleaning the gurudwara place before cooking the food, chopping of vegetables, packing of food (Chapati and sabzi), and distribution of food.

DiMaRF is also one of the few organizations being nominated by Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC) to step forward and join the cause of helping the marginalized at various Relief camps across the city Pune. Ranjit Desai, Aniket Ghule, Mayur Malwadkar, Ankita Pandey, Amit Bhagwat, Sanket Golegavkar, are some of volunteers who are working day and night for this social cause.

DiMaRF has actively participated in various disaster rescue and relief operations like Tsunami Relief Camp & Landslide at Saki Naka in 2005, Relief Aid Material for Kerala flood Victims in 2018, Relief Aid Material for Assam flood Victims in 2019 and Relief Material Distribution Camp at Shirol, Kolhapur in 2019 and many more.