City Pulse

Today, Bengaluru Mayor, M Goutham Kumar and Commissioner, N Manjunatha Prasad launched the BBMP initiative - blcares.in.: Bengaluru Local COVID 19 Awareness Response and Emergency Sahaya, which is bringing COVID care to your neighbourhood.

This initiative is all about managing the pandemic at a polling booth level which typically has 400 homes. Citizen volunteers and civic groups can work closely with government health care officials to contain the spread within their booth. By conducting house to house surveys, identifying vulnerable communities and individuals, early detection of ILI and SARI this initiative can contain the spread and save lives by providing timely medical help.

Srinivas Alavilli, Head, Civic Participation at Janaagraha said, “Janaagraha is proud to be a part of a joint campaign by civil society groups and the BBMP to manage the pandemic at a booth level in Bengaluru effectively. We believe citizen participation to key to success in local governance, and with this initiative, there is a formal mechanism for everyone to engage at a hyper-local level. People power will strengthen efforts in eliminating avoidable suffering due to COVID. When all the civic groups come together and work systematically, we can make a big difference. We must protect our most vulnerable and ensure there are no more lives lost due to lack of timely medical intervention. Booth level volunteers can help manage this situation street by street, by working with community leaders and empowering them with information, tools and resources.”

Sapna Karim, adds, “Never before in recent history have we witnessed hyper-local citizen engagement come alive as it has during the pandemic. With our cities’ capacities stretched, we know it will not be possible for city governments to fight this alone. Bengaluru continues to be a beacon of hyper-local citizen engagement in the entire country! Here is another opportunity for those of us who are able and willing to step up and play a historic role in saving people’s lives! The BBMP is pioneering change through the booth level initiative. It is in our hands to come together in neighbourhoods as booth volunteers and make a deep positive impact in the city for our fellow citizens. And each one of us can help – by signing up yourself or by sharing this with those who you think can volunteer and also just by spreading the word!”

CALL TO ACTION
The most significant impact can come from the generosity of each one of us helping each other. We invite all volunteers of Janaagraha and IChangeMyCity, COVID responders, Area Suraksha Mitras and citizen volunteers in Bengaluru to log on to https://blcares.in/#/, find your pooling booth, sign up as a booth volunteer and access training material. We request your help in spreading the word since there are 8500 booths in Bengaluru!

BL CARES is a joint initiative of ActionAid, Citizens for Bengaluru, Centre for Internet and Society - Access To Knowledge, Conscious Design Kalpa, Environment Support Group, Hasiru Dala Innovations, Janaagraha Centre for Citizenship and Democracy, Azim Premji Foundation Bangalore, Naavu Bharatiyaru (We the Indians), Reap Benefit, Sensing Local, Slum Mahila Sanghatane, Swaraj Abhiyan Karnataka, Whitefield Rising and others