Give at: www.jdc.org/COVIDIndia
The American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee (JDC), in coordination with the Indian Jewish community and its local partner SEWA Cooperative Federation, is responding to the devastating COVID-19 surge in India by deploying ventilators to hospitals in Mumbai and Ahmedabad. JDC is a United Jewish Federation of Tidewater partner agency.
The ventilators, manufactured in Israel, are in high demand by increasingly overburdened medical services.
JDC has been working in India since 1950 and has been responding to COVID-19 related needs there for the last year. JDC is raising additional funds to provide desperately needed oxygen, filtered masks, and other medical supplies through SEWA and telemedicine support for ICU doctors and nurses to consult with their peers in the U.S. and Israel.
“Our heart goes out to the people of India at this desperate time. While the needs are overwhelming, we know the critical importance of providing these life-saving supplies and training as quickly as possible. We’re privileged to work with the local Jewish community and longtime NGO partners to expand our current pandemic efforts to address the new COVID-19 surge. Together, we’ll put into action the Jewish principle that to save even one life is to save an entire world,” said JDC CEO Ariel Zwang.
JDC’s work in India comprises efforts with the 4,500-person Jewish community—including care for its neediest and Jewish cultural and educational opportunities—as well as support of vulnerable populations, like the poor in urban slums and women breadwinners, through economic empowerment and skill-building programs with local NGOs. JDC has previously responded to many disasters in the region, including flooding in Kerala, the Nepal earthquake, and the Indian Ocean Tsunami.
JDC’s disaster relief programs are funded by special appeals of the Jewish Federations of North America and tens of thousands of individual donors to JDC. JDC relief activities are coordinated with the U.S. Department of State, USAID, the Israeli government, and the United Nations, as well as local and international partners.
JDC and its partners have recently responded to the COVID-19 pandemic in Africa and Asia as well as natural disasters in Mozambique, the Bahamas, Guatemala, Indonesia, and Mexico. The group continues its post-disaster development work in Philippines and Haiti and leads the Jewish Coalition for Disaster Relief (JCDR), made up of 49 mostly North American Jewish organizations who address disasters and development challenges worldwide.
This is part of a series of articles spotlighting local and overseas partner agencies that are beneficiaries of the United Jewish Federation of Tidewater’s annual Community Campaign.