The Stronger Kolkata Initiative is a group of young students from diverse academic backgrounds, who decided to start Stronger Kolkata Initiative in May 2020. What started as a few deliveries of essential ration and other relief material to 14 families in a Beliaghata slum, has expanded and evolved to assume a scale of operations that we never imagined we would be able to achieve.

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So far, we have reached out to more than 3,200 families in West Bengal, travelling to locations as far apart as Purbo Shritopinagar, Piyali Island, Sagar Island in the Sunderbans, as well as Bhangor, Sonarpur, Champahati, Hasnabad, Paruldah, Baunia, Baduria. While our large scale relief operations have spread to areas far from any urban settlement, we have not left behind the urban poor in Kolkata either. We have completed numerous targeted mini deliveries in numerous slums in the city, to people whose livelihoods have come to a stop because of the COVID-19 crisis.

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We strongly believe in making not only a quantitative but also a qualitative difference to people. Apart from the delivery and distribution of essential ration and relief material, we have provided construction material and tarpaulins to people so that they can rebuild their homes. We have distributed more than 15,000 masks in more than 20 locations in the city of Kolkata and conducted awareness drives among the migrant unskilled labourers in the city to drive home the importance of wearing the masks that were given to them. We have distributed nearly 3000 sanitary napkins to women in the city as well as in the villages where we have distributed ration.

We are presently involved in trying to bridge the gap that has been created in the education of children in rural areas, who do not have the luxury of switching to an online model of teaching. In this regard, we are working with the Malda District Administration to stream pre-recorded lectures of topics from the Higher Secondary syllabus of the West Bengal board via cable television.