Fighting The COVID-19 Crisis: Why Collaboration Is Key
The dramatic spread of COVID-19 has disrupted lives, livelihoods, communities and business worldwide. The most not-so-talked about sector is the social sector which has also been ruptured due to this pandemic. Hindrances that the organisations in the social sector face can elaborate as follows:
Difficulties in finance and raising funds for persisting effort during the pandemic
Reduced manpower in terms of volunteers/downsizing
A decrease in future aids for the organisations
At such times of uncertainty, there also lies an opportunity to collaborate with similar organisations and create resilience together by:
Increased resources and manpower
Collective action towards the causes in times of this pandemic
Reduced operating cost and efficiency
Creative/innovative ways of serving the cause due to collaborations
Organisations around the world are coming together to fight and find innovative ways to limit the economic and human impact of this pandemic.
Infosys has partnered with Narayana Health City to launch a quarantine facility in Bengaluru apart from contributing Rs 100 crores and free meals to the most vulnerable sections of society. Reliance Foundation in collaboration with Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation has set up a dedicated 100-bed centre in Mumbai. Similarly, Nestle partnered with the Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies to provide urgent help to emergency services, caregivers and to strengthen health systems. In order to provide help to governments and health agencies, Apple and Google partnered with them to track the spread of the coronavirus through Privacy-Preserving contract tracking.
What is being witnessing today is a collaborative effort from organizations all over to support one another and the community to endure this pandemic, and to create effective systems to do their best to combat the spread of this deadly virus.
MASH Project Foundation is working with various stakeholders to create partnerships, build community and capacity and amplify messaging through its ecosystem of global changemakers. “We believe that especially in these trying times, it is important for us to work together with our partners to ensure the well-being of our community. With this motive in mind, we’ve reached out to changemakers in our ecosystem to share their initiatives and requirements during this time, this helped us to understand their challenges”, said Aashish Beergi, Co-founder & CEO of MASH Project Foundation.
In a time when remote working has become the new normal, and organizations have taken a hit, MASH Project Foundation has hosted webinars with its partners to highlight the plethora of changes that have happened.
Through its experience of interacting with different changemakers, it has realized that while during this time, there are several changemakers and their initiatives, that require support and also many donors, funders and corporates willing to support them. There is a need for platforms to connect them to each other. With its extensive network of changemakers, MASH started reaching out to those who’re working on this pandemic and those who can provide resources to support through its COVID Action initiative.
COVID Action initiative is a platform designed to provide information on all the necessary resources and schemes to fight the COVID-19 pandemic. In addition to that, the listing of all the social/civil organisations which are working through the pandemic, the website provides a breeding ground to form partnerships and seek support through its Collective. The initiative provides deep-dive support to its partners and helps them create a greater impact. Through the platform, it also ensures due-diligence by providing support in evaluating the credibility of listed initiatives and in creating a mechanism for fund utilization.
With an intent to bring different communities closer and create cross-sectoral partnerships, it has also introduced COVID Action Circles where different stakeholders can come together virtually to discuss issues that matter in this crucial time and how they can best support each other to learn, grow and survive the pandemic.
Organisations and communities all over the world are coming together to fight the pandemic and limit its impact on the economic, cultural, mental and social health of the people and the economy around the world through sustained efforts. During this uncertain time, there is a need for social collaborations and empathetic communication between various people across organizations. Organisations would need immense flexibility and adaptability more than any other skill to thrive in upcoming times. Culturally, people would be cautious during social interactions and mental anxiety may be at its peak due to long experiences of quarantine. And it is to endure these times, we must all come together and set a tone of empathy and collaboration because how we deal with the crisis today will pave a path for us to continue to strive in a post COVID world.
_20241126144533_original_image_32.webp)
