The Coronavirus pandemic has not only claimed over 3.25 lakh lives in India, but it has also plunged so many families into grief and rendered them helpless. Yudhvir Mor from Noida was shaken by the suffering all around — colleagues who lost the fight to COVID and their families were helpless. He, along with a few friends and colleagues launched a platform — covidwidows.in — to help women, who have lost their spouse, find employment. The portal was launched on May 11 and they have over 7000 volunteers who have joined to help these women make the transition.
"When I looked around, the best way to help them seemed to be able to help them find a job. Being a senior tech executive I thought I could help by talking to a few companies to see if they can do some prioritised hiring, get some volunteers on board to help the women by helping them write resumes, prepare them for the interviews and everything that comes with it," Yudhvir, a Country Manager and Vice President of an American company said. While the first set of volunteers were friends and colleagues, they also reached out to people on LinkedIn and the response was overwhelming. "I haven't had to pick up the phone and ask for help. People and companies are helping on their own," he added.
The process is simple. The candidates, Yudhvir refuses to stereotype them by calling them any other adjective, fill up a form with their details and the team reaches out to them. "We collect very basic information like name, contact details and educational qualification along with a few other details that give us knowledge about heir skill set, which area they want to work in. We match them with a volunteer in that area of interest. Most of our volunteers came in through LinkedIn and they have a fairly good network themselves. So in many cases, they take care and place the person. If they are not able to, they get detailed information and forward it to us. If they are still grieving and need support, we have a group of psychologists who came in and they help these women cope," added Yudhvir.
While most of the candidates who came in have a formal degree, the team has also partnered with a few NGOs across the country who help women with vocational training as well. There are also some who might need financial support right now. The team has a few partners who have come up to help these women as well but they are not doing donation drives themselves. Yudhvir and his team have submitted more than 200 applications till now and the number keeps increasing. "More than 50 interviews are still in progress. Five people have got confirmed jobs. And we had started only on May 11. But I really don't want to measure the impact with these numbers. We have a target to employ 1000 women — it may take a month or even six months. Finding a job is a multi-step process," he added.
The portal does not only cater to widows but to young women who lost their parents as well. Even though they realise that everyone needs help, the team does not want to expand their horizon as of yet. "I want to focus on our goal of employing 1000 women. I would not be surprised if we have to add another zero to that number after 15 days — such is the impact of this pandemic. But I want to stay focus. We would like to promise less and deliver more, rather than doing the opposite," added Yudhvir.
