A regional shortage of oxygen, hundreds of thousands of deaths, funeral pyres burning in the streets and millions of day laborers left without work and soon without food: the Covid-19 surge in South Asia last summer was among the worst anywhere, at any time, since the pandemic began.
In the midst of this, one couple sacrificially stepped up to serve their community.
Ashim was part of DAI’s first MAOL (Master of Arts in Organizational Leadership) cohort in his region. He and his wife, Awon, run a homestay (bed and breakfast) out of their home, but last spring they both fell gravely ill with Covid-19. Struggling to regain their strength over the weeks they battled the disease, they determined that if an opportunity ever came to help others make it through the virus they would not hold back.
Ashim and Awon’s homestay was already empty of guests during the pandemic, so they decided to transform it into a community kitchen, preparing meals for those too ill to cook. (Many in South Asia subsist on home-cooked meals, so if the family is too sick to prepare food, they often go without.)
They began with a few families, but the demand quickly spread as more in their community learned about their service. Before long, Ashim and Awon were even delivering food to hospital Covid wards. Ashim shares, “The experience we had delivering the cooked meals to the hospitals was like no other. It felt like we were walking in the shadow of death. Everywhere we looked, everyone was so desperate to survive and live their lives.”
Ashim and Awon deliver a meal in the rain to a family sick with Covid.
“We were very much in sorrow, but since we had taken the commitment to serve and help the people in need we did not take any break to grieve. It was not an easy decision but we had to make it nonetheless since the families now depended on us for food.”
Ashim and Awon served their community in this way, without stopping, until the surge abated. They had cooked and delivered over 500 meals in 51 days.
