The CEO of UNICEF NZ Michelle Sharp and Lani Evans, Vodafone Foundation CEO recently disclosed about their plans to support India in the Covid crisis. In a telephonic conversation with The Indian News Lani Evans said that India is the first country, Vodafone Foundation has chosen to help in the Covid crisis.

Michelle Sharp said UNICEF has a very long-standing pedigree of immunization globally and have an infrastructure on ground as a result. In the wake of Covid crisis UNICEF is partnering with COVAX in coalition with WHO, GAVI and CEPI to procure and supply Covid vaccines. India has been badly affected lately during the second wave of Covid resulting in an over starched and collapsing health system there. To support in the health crisis in India UNICEF has already supplied thousands of oxygens concentrators and other critical equipment so far. Even though the graph of daily infected people is starting to come down but there are still around 2,00,000 people continue to test positive which is clearly a lot. UNICEF NZ is also making efforts to create vaccine equity by try making balance in the distribution of vaccines between rich and the poor countries in the world, Michelle quoted.

Explaining about how Vodafone Foundation is involved in its efforts to help, Michelle said that Vodafone Foundation has initiated ‘give a little page’ donation where to every $10 donated, gets triple multiplier which is incredibly generous. So, the reach for UNICEF will be far greater than without this partnership. One of the well know Indian hospitality corporate in New Zealand, Sudima hotels have made a generous contribution of 28k to the ‘give a little page’ to help the covid affected people in India.

On being asked about what made Vodafone Foundation to involve in helping India at the time of the unprecedented crisis, Lani Evans told The Indian News that a large number of Vodafone staff have friends and families based in India. Our staff are getting emotionally impacted through those relationships by the crisis that is happening on the ground in India. So, Vodafone decided that both Vodafone business and the Foundation would match any donations being made to UNICEF, because its really important for the company to be able to support its staff and to support the things that they are passionate about and believe in. And especially as we go through such a challenging time. Vodafone chose UNICEF for this partnership because the company’s long-term relationship with the team at UNICEF and with Michelle personally. Lani further said, we chose to associate with UNICEF since they are trusted and a well-known global brand and have decades of experience behind them.

On being asked about how much amount they target to send to India Lani told so far over $70k has been collected through ‘give a little’ page and this is the final week of the appeal so they expect to send around 300k worth of help to India and appeal all kiwis to get behind this campaign and support quickly whatever they can. – Yugal Parashar

You can follow the button that says ‘Donate Here’ to support the Givealittle fundraiser – Support UNICEF’s crisis response in India. It will redirect you to the website where you can donate.