Migrant Travel Support, a group of concerned volunteers, is yet another example of people coming forward to help others across India reach their hometowns safely. An engineer by education, Leher Sethi left her job at a multinational company and is now associated with various NGOs. Disturbed by the visuals of the migrants, Sethi decided to get in touch with her friend Yogita Bhayana, who has been organising buses to transport migrants back to their homes.

“I told her I would like to sponsor one bus and send home patients who had come to AIIMS for their treatment and got stuck here due to the lockdown.  She was in touch with them. So, instead of a birthday celebration, I managed to raise funds to help the migrants get back home,” shared Sethi. With some funds still left after sending one bus, she reached out to Migrant Travel Support to send two more buses. For Sethi, who is a part of the Migrant Travel Support group, which as of last week had sent 3,500 migrants in buses and 1,500 by trains, the journey didn’t end with the fund. She got in touch with someone in Delhi government, who offered to help her organise trains as one bus couldn’t carry more than 50 people with proper social distancing.

“Today, we are working in collaboration with various NGOs and collecting data with the help of Aavni, a data scientist. Once we have drawn the list after it is thoroughly checked, the volunteers call the people a day in advance of their travel,” informs Sethi. Even with certain restrictions being lifted, distress calls are still pouring in. With so many people asking for help, Sethi makes sure to ask the reason behind them leaving and the number of people with them, hoping to prioritise the ones in dire need. “We first try to send families with children and the individuals who are alone in the city,” adds Sethi.

With dwindling demand, many factories are yet to open for work and with them the migrants hoping to rejoin their work are left unwanted and uncared for. Sethi and the entire group of concerned citizens are looking for ways to help them. Sethi narrates one such recent incident: “Last week, I got a call by a group of e-rickshaw drivers who along with their families were left homeless. With their business down, they were left with no money and their landlord had driven them out. With no other skills, they wanted to go home and work on their farm lands. For us, these people are our priority and once we had the needed information, they were moved to a government run shelter home and next day they were on their way home,” narrates Sethi.

Making things happen with the sheer will to help

Migrant Travel Support is neither an NGO nor do they have a trust account, it solely works with the help of individuals willing to help. “We have a lot of WhatsApp groups and we ask for help as in what we need. We share what we need and someone or the other either gets help or volunteers to help. Also, I as an individual get a lot of calls. Recently, I got a call from a girl in Ahmedabad who was suicidal.

We booked a flight for her. In another case, there were four children who were preparing for entrance exams and were stuck in Shaheen Bagh. Their parents were in Kolkata and couldn’t afford a ticket home for the children so we flew them home,” says Sethi, adding that this wouldn’t have been possible without the people who are working on the ground level. Like Chandrajeet.

“Last time while sending 200 people home, we experienced a shortage of tickets. These people had left their home with everything they ever possessed, even the table fans, looking forward to going home. It was Chandrajeet, who ran around the entire time and arranged three buses to send them home.”