Uttarakhand Needs You

Kindkarma Foundation proposes an urgent, people-centred flood-relief and recovery initiative for communities across Uttarakhand affected by continuous monsoon rains and cloudbursts. Our overarching goal is to restore safety, dignity, and continuity of life for displaced and at-risk families by mobilising rapid response teams, strengthening local coordination, and delivering last-mile assistance where conventional access has failed. The approach is humanitarian, non-political, and grounded in accountability to affected people.

Key objectives are to stabilise immediate needs, re-establish essential services where disrupted, and lay the groundwork for early recovery. We will prioritise habitations that remain cut off due to road failures and landslides, while maintaining a special focus on women, children, elders, and persons with disabilities. The project emphasises respectful engagement, informed consent, and culturally sensitive communication in Hindi and local dialects.

Operations will begin with swift community assessments undertaken alongside village leaders, panchayat representatives, district authorities, and frontline volunteers. These assessments will map displacement, vulnerabilities, and priority concerns. Resulting information will feed a simple digital tracking system that guides field routing, records households reached, flags duplication risks, and protects privacy. A dedicated helpline and WhatsApp intake will capture requests, verify details, and schedule follow-ups.

We will activate a state-wide volunteer network with clear roles for community liaisons, field mobilisers, logistics coordinators, helpline operators, and safeguarding focal points. All personnel will receive short trainings on code of conduct, child protection, do-no-harm principles, psychological first aid, and safety in mountainous terrain. Partnerships with local institutions will enable shared staging points, mutual referrals, and coordinated access permissions for difficult or sensitive routes.

Immediate activities include evacuation support where requested by authorities, reunification assistance for separated family members, information services on health and protection, and facilitation of access to government relief channels. For last-mile reach, teams will use locally appropriate transport and foot trails, maintain daily situation logs, and document GPS-stamped visit notes with photo-free options for families who prefer not to be recorded. Community volunteers will be reimbursed fairly for time and travel as per policy.

To protect equity and accountability, beneficiary selection will be anchored in vulnerability criteria such as female-headed households, elderly-only households, families with infants or disabled members, and households with no income source after the disaster. A public grievance mechanism—phone, email, and in-person office hours—will allow suggestions and complaints to be registered, tracked, and resolved. We will publish anonymised reach dashboards and fortnightly narrative updates to maintain community and donor trust.

As conditions stabilise, the project will pivot to early recovery. Activities will include support with documentation to access entitlements and insurance, neighbourhood clean-up drives with youth groups, restoration of schooling continuity through liaison with teachers, and livelihood re-linkages via information clinics and mentoring circles. The emphasis will remain on dignity, inclusion, and community ownership so that affected families can resume normal routines with confidence.

Monitoring and evaluation will combine daily field dashboards, weekly review calls, and outcome indicators such as households reached, time from request to assistance, proportion of vulnerable households served, referrals successfully closed, and community satisfaction scores gathered through short, voluntary feedback interactions. Data management will follow privacy-by-design principles with consent, minimal collection, secure storage, and defined retention timelines aligned with legal requirements.

Risk management will address weather alerts, landslide and flood warnings, alternate routing plans, and close coordination with the Incident Response System and district control rooms. Volunteer safety protocols will include check-in schedules, buddy systems, and personal protective guidance appropriate to terrain. The project will run in phases—rapid response in the first weeks, stabilisation and early recovery in the following months, and a gradual handover to local structures as access normalises—accompanied by transparent reporting and audited accounts.