Akshat used to work with SaveLIFE Foundation, an organisation committed to saving lives on Indian roads- Through a data driven and evidence based approach SLF achieved a near 50% reduction road crash fatalities from baseline on the Mumbai Pune Expressway, with a goal to eventually make it a Zero Fatality Corridor
In April 2021, the total number of confirmed COVID-19 cases in India broke the 1 million mark since the pandemic started. Government infrastructure was overwhelmed, there were innumerable cases of information duplication, multiplication which added on to a system that is on the brink of collapsing. Public was fearful. The spike in COVID-19 cases caused people who needed medical resources asking for information on availability of oxygen supply, hospital bed, ambulances and medicines.
Akshat Garg, Master in Public Policy junior (class of 2023) stepped up to offer help to the community. “I have to fulfil my responsibilities as a policy student, citizen of India and the world.”
With this resolution, he co-led the Network Capital Covid Response (NCCR) and cofounded COVID action lab with his friend, Srujani (For more sharing from the duo: https://www.networkcapital.tv/blog/covid-action-lab). Together with 1,400 volunteers from Discord and WhatsApp community, the volunteers stepped up to battle the surging “info-demic” and debunk misinformation; a commonplace at the height of the pandemic. Common myth busters were shared on COVID action lab’s social media and useful resources related to COVID-19 were curated and shared consistently.
Example of myth buster posted on COVID action lab
NCCR which Akshat was a volunteer and co-lead at, organised a structural division of labour where volunteers were grouped into teams based on tasks like Doctors’ Advice Channel, donation request verification, blood and resource donation, and fund raising and mental relief (for volunteers and general public). The network’s run was almost 24/7 to attend to the public’s requests. He passionately recalls volunteers who started working from as early as 4.30 am. They had to call hospitals, other volunteer networks like Tata Institute of Social Sciences Alumni Network, National Health Mission Network, direct vendors and Non-Profit Organisations like Rotary Club to gather the latest information on resource availability.
Every minute on the clock means life or death. There were instances when volunteers secured medical help within the same day only to discover the patient had not survived the wait. Such moments were as devastating to the volunteers as it was to the family of the deceased.
At this point, Akshat helped volunteers and general public to deal with the loss of life, “The heavy emotional burden from the responsibility of saving lives through such massive relief efforts can be quite traumatic. Especially since many of the volunteers were doing this for the first time, they needed grief counselling and help to deal with the loss of lives each day. Tending to their mental well-being is just as vital as saving the lives of those they were trying to help. The mental fatigue of trying to find new ways and means to help can also be debilitating if left unattended to in the long term.”
Akshat Garg, self-taught barista
But what keeps Akshat’s well-being buoyant is a little hobby he has nurtured from scratch.
Being a self-taught barista, he makes good use of his skills by running another initiative kafkascup in parallel. Kafkascup’s #coffeeforgood initiative aims to better engage donors and raise more funds for COVID-19 relief through coffee.
When he first started this, there were already many types of fundraising initiatives. But what Akshat did was to partner with some of the best cafés, and coffee and tea specialists in India to contribute to COVID-19 fundraising initiatives through their expertise. It was a welcome change.
Coffee and tea connoisseurs or enthusiasts could build their charitable efforts around sharing their unique skills, expertise, wares and products to help the COVID-riddled community around them. Akshat also organised coffee samples and chances to participate in coffee 101 workshops to boost fundraising for COVID relief.
Akshat running an online Coffee 101 workshop for donors.
The funds raised successfully provided aid to 1,000+ beneficiary families in rural and tribal India. It also provided seed capital for 10 women widowed by COVID to start their micro-enterprises and inculcated community leaders to eventually educate 9,000 women in fundamental financial literacy. Three health centres also benefited from the initiatives’ donations with more medicine and medical supplies, and the outfitting of additional vaccine refrigerators for long-term sustainability and capacity.
Working on the ground, Akshat also observed a gap between investment between social capital and implementation.
“Non-profit (organisations) are doing good work, but they do not have enough money to scale up when a crisis such as COVID-19 hit. Investors or donors won’t have the on-the-ground situation awareness and first-hand information to know what are the true challenges these organisations regularly face.”
Armed with this insight, Akshat plans to continue to raise awareness and build social capital for non-profit organisations after his graduation. “I sense a calling to continue to build on what I have been doing by helping to amplifying their worthy causes and needs and multiply the impact of these outcomes to the community.”
Akshat ran another coffee workshop for his classmates at LKYSPP recently.