The two waves of Covid-19 pandemic has left a large number of children orphaned as the entire family, including parents, as the virus ravaged entire families across India. Though State Governments have launched initiatives to take care of these children, individuals and organisations, too, are stepping forward manfully by adopting them en masse.

One such person is a social worker from Dehradun who has decided to adopt 100 children who have been orphaned during the pandemic.

His name is Jai Sharma, founder of the city-bassed NGO JOY (Just Open Yourself). Without wasting any time Sharma has already commenced the campaign of adopting 100 children. These will be apart from the 20 adopted ones he already has.

One of the posts of the NGO on Facebook, Sharma has said: “When the second wave of COVID-19 started, we encountered five such families in the initial two weeks where both the parents had died, and the child/children were left alone at home. A few of these children were of Classes 4th-5th age group, one was in 12th, and the rest were small in age. At that moment, it hit our mind that this unfortunate scenario was inevitable, and we were to come across more such cases as the pandemic rose.”

Sharma went on to add that till date he has been looking after and taking care of 20 children. He is ensuring that their needs for food, medicines and other expenses are taken care of.

In the 20 children that Sharma is taking care of, two are from Dehradun, while the remaining children are from other parts of the hills.

Sharma, spelling out the plans for helping more such children said: “Within a week, we will be completing our target of adopting 50 children, followed by 100 children eventually. I, Jai Sharma from JOY, am there to support these children by any means possible, till the time they become self-sufficient!”

Sharma, his team and the NGO are reaching out to different villages in  order to reach out to the orphan children there. Besides, they are connecting with the Gram Pradhans of the villages to be able to contact children without parents or guardians in order to help them out.

The organisation run by Sharma, namely JOY has been actively involved in helping people ever since the Coronavirus struck the country. The NGO has been distributing free 24×7 oxygen cylinders with no additional charges. They were also in the forefront in distributing COVID medical kits, sanitization kits along other medical equipment to those in need, according to the Facebook post.