Mother was in pain, tried to help, was late: Children battle grief, loneliness With trafficking common in many parts of Jharkhand, Chief Minister Soren has emphasised that the Covid crisis should not leave children open to any form of In a span of two days, a 17-year-old Class 12 student lost both his parents to Covid-19 in Jamtara district of Jharkhand. In Gumla district, a 17-year-old, a Class 5 dropout, is now the head of the family to three younger siblings, after their mother succumbed to the virus.
In Ranchi’s Bero block, a 14-year-old has been fighting nightmares since his mother, his only surviving parent, For now, the children are battling grief, and struggling to understand this sudden turn in their lives. by an NGO which runs a child helpline. Gumla DCPO Ved Prakash said the children will be supported via a scholarship scheme. “The eldest girl and the grandfather will stay together, and the remaining three will be sent to a children’s home as there is no one else to take care of them,” he said, adding that block-level officers also gave the family some money to tide over. who had lost their only parent to Covid-19 had been produced virtually before them.
“All the formalities are being followed to link them with Integrated Child Protection Schemes,” she said. The State Resource Centre for Children run by NGO Bal Kalyan Sangh in Jharkhand has also sent rations to their The Nodal Department, Women and Child Development, said they are compiling the names of children who need care through hospitals and surveys and then uploading the data.
“It is a long drawn process,” said WCD Principal Secretary Avinash Kumar. The 14-year-old in Bero lost his father in 2019, and mother on May 16. “Dard ho raha tha, fever tha aur saans lene mein bhi dikkat tha (She was in pain, had fever, and had difficulty breathing). I informed people, but I think it got late,” he says. The 14-year-old’s WhatsApp profile has a crying emoticon next to the words “Mummy, Daddy”.
His elder cousin says the family will need help to support The Jamtara 17-year-old lost both his parents within a space of a few days — his father on April 29, and mother on May 1. The cause of death for both is recorded as cardio-respiratory failure. An ICSE Board Class 10 ‘district topper’, the 17-year-old is battling the grief while waiting for a word on his Class 12 exams. “We had moved to the town area for my studies.
My parents had made a lot of sacrifices,” he says, managing to keep his composure. His father started showing Covid symptoms around April 17, he says. “He was down with fever. My mother cried a lot knowing that something bad was going to happen. A few days later she too fell ill.” Jamtara Deputy Commissioner Faiz Ahmed Mumtaz said the administration will help the teenager with his