By Sekhar Seshan. Consulting Editor, Business India

Mukul Madhav Foundation (MMF) is providing wholehearted support to its beneficiaries - old people, HIV-afflicted women, mobile teachers, authorities, parents, and systems – according to its managing trustee Ritu Prakash Chhabria. “All of them have been an integral part of carrying out these activities and initiatives and need support during the various stages of the lockdown,” she says. “MMF’s volunteers have been silently supporting us in this mission.”

With the Pune-headquartered Finolex Industries Ltd (FIL), of which MMF is the CSR partner, the Foundation took the initiative to formulate a strategy of pre-preparedness much before WHO announced Covid-19 as a global pandemic. This strategy, spurred by the unfolding events in China at the end of 2019, was developed in close consultation with local hospitals, doctors who have been associated with the Foundation, para-medical partners, and others with relevant experience.

MMF foresaw the increase in the need for masks and approached various organisations which could contribute towards this requirement. The Family Planning Association of India, which provides livelihoods to HIV+ women in Pune, and local women’s self-help groups in Satara – where the Foundation is active - were approached to make these masks. This effort was mirrored in MMF’s at the Skill Development Centres at Masar near Vadodara in Gujarat and Ratnagiri in Maharashtra, where FIL has manufacturing facilities.

All this has created an opportunity for these women and has enabled them to earn additional money to contribute towards their family incomes. Punyadham Ashram on the outskirts of Pune, which houses senior citizens, also voluntarily began making masks and supporting the needs of the police force, the government-run Sassoon General Hospital and MMF.