Mukesh Kumar is a national secretary of IYC, incharge of IYC Punjab.
He has been the working with IYC team under the leadership of Srinivas BV for covid relief. Since first wave hit the country, many unprecedented things occurred, no one expected to be fettered by the lockdown. Countless people lost their jobs, the most affected amongst them were the ones who were the daily wage workers.
"Under the guidelines of Srinivas BV, we started providing food to the people who were wandering around and lost their jobs," he said. Mukesh told that everyday food was prepared for 5000 people. These food packets were distributed to people who became homeless and were moving back to their native place.
Their team also started a campaign for making masks, plethora of masks were made and distributed, it was also a way of creating awareness and making people understand the importance of wearing masks, as many considered it trivial to wear the masks at that time.
Mukesh talked about the challenges he faced while working for covid relief.
"We used to take medicines and other essentials for people who were infected and who couldn't go outside their house. What startled me was that the family members of these infected people were not ready to help them. They were reluctant to go near them as they were scared, so it became difficult to make them understand and help these people," he said.
Being dedicated to help people in the Pandemic, he had to sacrifice many things. He shared what affected him the most,
"Amidst all this what affected me the most was that I became distant from my family. I avoided going near my son and other people as there was a fear that they might get something from me. It was the hardest time," he said.