Another update from BCPT about 26/11 victims

GiveIndia is still getting donations for the victims of the Mumbai terror attacks. In fact, one fundraising event just took place in Iowa, USA recently and another is scheduled to take place in Mumbai soon. Watch the blog for more details.

BCPT has set up another page accepting donations after the previous page expired in early February after raising in excess of Rs3lac.

Just a reminder that GiveIndia as a practice does not do any due diligence on iGive projects. Donors are advised to take their donation decisions keeping this in mind.

Here is the latest update from BCPT about how they plan to provide support to those affected by the 26/11 Mumbai terror attacks.

On behalf of the citizens of Mumbai, BCPT endeavored to reach out to all affected families – deceased and injured, rich and poor, Mumbaikars and those residing in other parts of the country. Since the Taj Group of Hotels, the Oberoi Group of Hotels, the Police and the NSG immediately announced to take care of their own personnel, and since other NGOs had announced their intention of supporting the victims admitted to JJ and GT hospitals, BCPT therefore concentrated on contacting 72 families of deceased victims and 80 victims who were injured as they did not fall in any of the above categories. Additionally, referrals of 11 cases given to BCPT with a request to extend support were also included in the list.

We focused on 72 families of deceased victims. Of these, we contacted 66 families but were not able to locate 6 families since some addresses were incomplete, homes were locked and phone numbers were wrong.

Of the 66 families, the families of 20 deceased victims require help. The remaining 46 families have stated that they do not require help or are receiving required support from other sources. The 20 victims have left behind

28 minor children
6 retired, dependent parents
11 widows and
1 family has lost both parents.

The families contacted by us all require support. They are going through a very difficult time and have yet to come to term with their loss. The widows are traumatized as they all have young children and now have to work out ways of caring for the family single-handedly. Most of them are housewives, so they also have to prepare themselves to step out of their houses and earn a livelihood.

A few of the deceased victims were unmarried, yet were the main bread winners of their family. In these families the dependents include old parents and siblings – small children and/or young adults.

Some of the families were living in small rented houses in low income neighborhoods. With no steady income now, they are faced with the situation of having to move out of these houses and either move in with relatives or go back to their hometowns.

One of the deceased was a taxi driver who drove a rented taxi to earn money. He is survived by his wife and two young children aged 5 and 3. They are currently in Mumbai but will go back to their village, where they do farming. He was the only earning member of the family. His father has cancer. He used to send money home to his village every month for the treatment of his father. One of his brothers is also a taxi driver in Mumbai. He has another brother who is going to come to Mumbai now to earn.

A young woman who lost her life used to work as a domestic help to support her family. She lost her life in the bomb blast at Wadi Bunder. She is survived by her husband and two young sons. Her husband sells fish from door to door for a living and does not have a fixed income. It was his wife whose monthly income was used to support their family. Her husband and children currently stay in a rented house. However, since her husband does not have a fixed income, paying rent and school fees has become difficult for him.