Tag: coronavirus

103. Only if someone thought about them too

Posted on by Neha Goyal

It’s a bright Sunday morning with less pollution in the air. You are sipping your morning coffee, with your right leg on top of your left leg and reading news on your tab. While reading on COVID’19, what is happening across the world and how the number of cases in India has increased. You realise that the lockdown might increase for the safety of people but it exasperate you. It’s already been more than three weeks since you went out and you don’t feel like staying inside anymore.

Most of us are in a comfortable space where the main problem that we are facing is not going out or helping in house chores. No, my direction is not towards how the immigrants or poor people are facing a setback during this pandemic. Here it is on, how during this quarantine domestic violence and abuse is rising. This lockdown is like a trap for women and children who are staying with abusers.

The National Commission for Women (NCW), which receives complaints of domestic violence from across the country, has recorded more than twofold rise in gender-based violence in the national Coronavirus lockdown period. The total complaints from women rose from 116 in the first week of March (March 2-8), to 257 in the final week (March 23-April 1).

Due to lockdown and restrictions in going out, it is difficult for the victims to seek help. Women who are financially dependent on their partners are sacred to revolt against it as their husbands can become more violent and abusive. Women coming from low-income are the ones who are facing this issue the most as their husbands would take out their frustration of no job on them.

Not only the family members but the situation of domestic violence is getting worse even in some hospitals where people are getting isolated. Recently, in an article by India Times, I read how a migrant woman died due to excessive bleeding after allegedly being raped in the isolation ward in Bihar. She was two months pregnant woman who was suspected to be a coronavirus positive. She was kept for isolation where she was assaulted by a healthcare worker for two days.

This is one of the many cases that we know has happened when we are in our house safe yet cribbing to go out. When we, here want to go out and meet people, there are people who are waiting for the lockdown to get over so that they can be safe again in their own houses.

Institutions that are supposed to protect women facing domestic violence and abuse are trying hard to reach out to them and help them. The NGOs and helplines are moving these victims to move to nearby safe zones or are providing counseling to them online or over the phone.

I don’t know what else to say except hoping that these women will stay safe and stand against issues like this.

Reference: https://www.indiatimes.com/news/india/migrant-woman-dies-of-excessive-bleeding-after-allegedly-being-raped-in-isolation-ward-in-bihar-510562.html

https://www.outlookindia.com/website/story/india-news-rise-in-domestic-violence-across-all-strata-of-society-in-the-coronavirus-lockdown-period/350249

99. RT online Conclave

Posted on by Neha Goyal

As we know, communication professionals have been the solution providers in every critical situation since decades. With this new normal of going digital, work from home and social distancing due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Reputation Today in partnership with SCoRe decided to organise its very first online conclave. The RT conclave that was scheduled this month in Delhi has been postponed due to the pervasive outbreak. To have a discussion on the current situation and how to go about it, some of the best communication professionals from PR firms and corporates from various sectors were part of this conversation. The panel of 16 members with a moderator and anchor delivered a short and crisp message in an average of three minutes on topics like How Companies are Dealing with Volatility, Uncertainty, Chaos & Ambiguity.

It was a great opportunity for me to attend and enrich myself with insights on how organizations are responding to the ongoing pandemic, and how reputations are at stake. My 3 key takeaways during such a situation from the #RTConclave are:

  1. Brands should focus on what they stand for, their purpose, how can they give back to society rather than getting distracted during such a challenging time
  2. Being authentic, engaging and having a meaningful conversation in these trying times is important for all communicators
  3. No matter how difficult the scenario is, brands should be empathetic and humane not only to their customers but towards all their stakeholders

But above all, the biggest reminder during this conversation was ‘we the communication professionals are in the people’s business at the end of the day’.

Other than discussing how communication professionals can bring normalcy to this situation, the conversation ended with an action to bring awareness and commitment towards caution and health. People from Reputation Today, PRCAI, SCoRe along with the panellists, pledged to fiercely uphold our profession as never before by promising to stay safe, to stand by their clients and to be ethical no matter what. Anyone from PR fraternity can take this pledge and be a part to communicate better even during these testing times.

98. Work From Home

Posted on by Neha Goyal

It was a week where not only a firm, a city or a country but most of the countries were working from home. It is a situation when it is important to come together and support each other to get through this. As today, we are amid a bizarre condition where the spread of the coronavirus disease (Covid-19) necessitates responsible individual, social and institutional behaviour.

It totally depends on how one looks at a situation. This is definitely an adverse state but we should look at the other side of it as well. We have been given the gift of time that we don’t get when we go to our workplaces and have hectic schedules. It should be seen as a forced sabbatical where we can’t do anything about it but can utilise it by doing a few things for ourselves. It helped people in maintaining social distance in every way possible and also spend time with their families that they usually don’t do.

The outbreak of this pandemic disease that is spreading rapidly is making people do things that people are not accustomed to or things that they like but don’t get time for. With the implementation of technological advancement students and employees have been continued doing their work online. This process of working might change the way we work in the future and bust myths around remote working. This has also been a unique situation for those who have never worked from home for long periods and found it difficult in doing so. There is a huge difference in working in office and at home productively during this pandemic. A lot of people who are familiar with doing this shared some tips and tricks to work effectively without letting the work suffer.

Other than working from home, through social media we also learned how people have spent their time and motivated others as well. Some people have spent time reading books, started exercising and meditating, took up a new hobby whereas some got back to their old hobbies like painting, cooking, dancing and so on.

Together the whole world is fighting against this virus and taking precautionary measures. Even today on 22nd March, every Indian citizen stayed in to support #JantaCurfew and help each other in not spreading this virus. Looking to the current scenario, it looks like we will be staying in and working from home for few more days. But it is on us, that how we chose to remember certain parts of our life. Being angry and grumpy never helps but choosing positivity over negativity does. And I hope things get better soon and gets back to normal.