Online volunteerism during COVID–19 pandemic in India Mathur Deepali* Social Work, Bhagat Phool Singh Mahila Vishwavidyalaya, Haryana, India *Corresponding author: deepali@bpswomenuniversity.ac.in
Online Published on 25 July, 2023. Abstract Covid-19 virus posed to the whole world as a threat to life. International organizations like WHO also called it a shadow pandemic as during this period there was a rise in violence, abuse, and insecurities among many socio-economic groups. Amid all these challenges, volunteers, frontline workers, social workers, health functionaries, doctors, and counselors continued to serve the people in the situation of crisis. The present paper is an attempt to explore the practices and challenges of Telle-counsellors who were associated with telle services (special helpline for Covid-19) set -up exclusively to cater to the migrant population, women, children, etc to address problems that occurred during Covid-19 pandemic and worked as volunteer or was given the task to serve at helpline by their respective social organization and dealt with multiple issues of the clients affected by Covid-19. The data in the present study was collected using a mixed method approach (sequential explanatory design) through volunteers who were giving their time in coordinating welfare activities during the time of pandemic through online connections. To reach out to these volunteers, snowball sampling was used as many organizations were not willing to participate in the study due to confidential issues. The data was collected by reaching out to 62 online volunteers. Further, the researcher reached out to five volunteers who were willing to share their extensive experience of online counseling. Both quantitative data and qualitative data were analyzed to conclude. The study shows that India has contributed substantially to the welfare of its people through many volunteer organizations and individual volunteers but the same is not appropriately supported in the world of digitalization therefore the national level policy is required to tap this human resource to utilize during the time of crisis, especially through online and remote outreach. Top Keywords Online volunteerism, COVID-19, Telle – counseling. Top |