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US volunteers of various faiths working to help India counter coronavirus crisis

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Volunteers at Hindu temples, Muslim groups and Sikh relief organizations across the United States are mobilizing to support India as the world’s second most populous country struggles to handle a devastating surge of the coronavirus.

From coast to coast, faith groups tied to the Indian diaspora have collected hundreds of oxygen concentrators and electrical transformers to ship to overwhelmed hospitals, raised millions for everything from food to firewood for funeral pyres and gathered in prayer for spiritual support for the Asian nation.

“This is a human tragedy, said Manzoor Ghori, executive director of the California-based Indian Muslim Relief and Charities, which has donated more than $1 million for purposes including supporting teachers and providing families with thousands of medical kits and more than 300,000 meals. ...

He’s one of many in the U.S. diaspora to have lost relatives to the virus in India, where total confirmed infections and deaths have surpassed 22.6 million and 246,000, respectively, though the true numbers are believed to be much higher. ...

...the BAPS Swaminarayan Sanstha Hindu organization has provided 250 oxygen concentrators and several hundred thousand dollars in COVID-19 relief to help with India’s overwhelmed health system. ...

In the New York City borough of Queens, the Hindu Temple Society of North America has also been fundraising online and has so far donated more than $50,000 to the India Development and Relief Fund in Washington, D.C., for concentrators and other medical needs. ...ing.”

Support for India has come, too, from the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee, which sent ventilators to hospitals in Mumbai and Ahmedabad and personal protective equipment to rural communities. It is also recruiting U.S. and Israeli intensive-care doctors and nurses for a telemedicine training program.

" In the efforts that we’re making in India ... what we keep in mind is that with each action that we engage in, we can save one life,” said Michael Geller, the group’s director of communications and media relations. “And that one life represents an entire world of people who can be impacted.”

Nepal, India’s much-smaller neighbor, is seeing its own pandemic spike, with doctors there warning recently of a major crisis as hospitals run out of beds and oxygen. That has prompted similar aid efforts by Nepalese in the United States. ...

 

 

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