‘People First’ is the mantra for Patna’s beacon of hope Prasun Kumar
Thousands of hands came forward to serve humanity during the Corona pandemic and one of them was Prasun Kumar from Patna. A young political strategist and socio-political activist, Prasun Kumar is a native resident of Patna. Last year in the month of March, when COVID-19 cases were on a surge, he was quick enough to realize that in order to fight this pandemic, awareness is the key, and hence he started a mass awareness campaign ‘Ten Calls, Ten Lives’. More than 1000 individuals signed up for the initiative and over 10,000 awareness calls were made in less than 10 days.
After that, Prasun Kumar initiated ‘My City, My Task, 11 Days 11,111 Masks’ to ensure the free distribution of masks and other life-saving items to those in need across the city of Patna. Both the initiatives were well received and got a lot of support from the local youths as well. Realizing the need for more such initiatives, Prasun Kumar along with his other young associates launched a youth organization called the ‘Greater Patna Youth Association’. Today there are hundreds of active members of this organization, and during the second wave of COVID, all of them came together and started a virtual control room (using a network of Twitter and WhatsApp users) to help those in distress. Hundreds of people from Patna and the nearby vicinity were provided immediate relief by Prasun Kumar and his team members.
‘10–12 days during the second wave were the most challenging of all. It started with few assistance calls but the number surged in just a day, from 4–5 calls I started getting 40–50 calls daily. Fortunately, we were able to set up a mechanism that helped us cater to the maximum of requests received.’ says Prasun Kumar. He adds, ‘People First’ is my mantra, One for all and All for One is what we need to inculcate in ourselves as a society.’
More than 50 home isolation kits with COVID recovery medicines, immunity booster foods, oximeter, thermometer, and vapouriser were provided for free to those in need. Another initiative ‘Blood Donation Before Vaccination’ was also started in the month of May’21 keeping in mind the possible shortage of blood because of the blood donation protocols for Corona vaccinated individuals. Even today this team is actively engaged in serving humanity.