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The COVID-19 pandemic has caused an unprecedented amount of stress and anxiety — especially among children and families in Holt programs around the world. Learn how Holt's on-the-ground team in Pune, India, is helping to address this mental health crisis and protect the overall wellbeing of sponsored kids and families. 

  • group of children sitting on the floor laughing at summer camp
    Activities normally held in person, like a summer camp pictured here, were offered online. Children attended school online, connecting via cell phones provided by Holt donors. And Holt's on-the-ground team held digital camps for kids and training sessions for parents to improve communication with their children.
  • woman smiling looking away from camera
    Social workers began calling families on a regular basis. "We would talk to the children, to the parents, about how they are coping,” explains Vaishali. “How are their economic issues? How emotionally are they supporting each other? Are there any other issues that are creating uneasiness in the family? We talk about what things are in your control, which things can you cope with alone and [for] which things do you think you need external support.”
  • mother daughter and son standing looking at the camera in blue clothing
    “We asked children, ‘What changes do you find after your mothers have been attending these classes?’" says Vaishali. "And the children were very happy to say, ‘Now my mother seems to be understanding us more.’"
  • mother holding child and smiling in purple sari
    In a recent letter to Holt sponsors who support children in Pune, Vaishali wrote, “We see a ray of hope as gradually everyone has accepted to live with COVID as a new normal. Parents have slowly started going back to work. Children are adjusting to the online education system. And most of all, you continue to support your sponsored child, which brings so much hope to their life.”
  • three women standing holding bags of grain
    When COVID hit in early spring 2020, Holt donors responded with emergency donations — making it possible to distribute over 1,033 kits of emergency food and lifesaving medications to families living in Pune slums. For many families, these emergency supplies meant the difference between life and death.
  • Women and son sitting on the ground with food
    After meeting emergency needs, our on-the-ground team in Pune began to address an issue not as dire as food and medicine, but just as critical to the overall wellbeing of children and families: mental and emotional health.
  • father and little boy standing in doorway of slum home in India
    “The children's movement were restricted,” explains Vaishali Vahikar, sponsorship program director in Pune. “They were made to sit inside the houses, which created panic situation all around and lot of confusion in the minds of children.” Siblings fought. Kids got restless. Parents lashed out at their kids, and kids clashed with parents.
  • group of children sitting in alleyway playing game in India
    Before the pandemic, children living in the slums of Pune, India, would spend most of their days outside the home — either at school or playing in the narrow alleyways between buildings.
  • girl standing in doorway of slum home looking up at camera
    In India's slum communities, families as large as six or seven share a single-room, 100-square-foot home. Homes are stacked and crowded and feel more like a storage unit, with only one door to the outside.
  • narrow alleyway in Indian slum
    Few families have electricity or plumbing. Communities of 200 or more people share a single water facet and public restroom area. Women wash clothes and dishes and bathe their children in buckets in the alleys outside.

When India imposed a nationwide lockdown early in the pandemic, families across the country went into crisis. But nowhere more so than in the impoverished slum communities where Holt-sponsored children and families live. Under strict quarantine measures, they could not leave their homes for work or school or even to go to the grocery store. They had no income, minimal savings, and very quickly ran out of food. Some had a limited supply of lifesaving medications. Some went days without anything to eat.

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