A letter from Nishant Pandey , CEO AIF, On behalf of the American India Foundation (AIF), I wanted to wish you the best of health in these very uncertain times. The safety and health of our supporters are of the utmost concern for us, and you and your family are in our thoughts.

The COVID-19 pandemic is affecting the global community at large and the way we operate. I am writing to share with you how we are responding: 1. Prioritizing well-being of our staff, volunteers, fellows and partners: This includes working from home, travel restrictions and in the most critical way, canceling/postponing physical events. As you may be aware, we have changed the way we were prepared to hold our traditional New England and San Francisco Galas on March 28th. We are also postponing our annual New York Gala to an appropriate date in Fall.   2. Minimizing disruption to our current donor commitments, without compromising the safety of our staff and partners on the ground. We fully recognize that there are many programmatic activities that will have to be put on hold/deferred/canceled and we are proactively communicating with our donors to make sure they are updated on these plans.  We are trying our best to make sure these changes do not affect our commitment towards hundreds of thousands of women, girls and children who rely on AIF for critical support.  We believe that India's poor, who have weak access to the right information, healthcare and are predominantly employed/self-employed in the unorganized sector, are expected to bear a disproportionate brunt of the economic fallout of this unprecedented health emergency. We want to do our best to make sure that communities with the greatest needs are not hit the hardest.  3. Leveraging our multi-sectoral programming on health, education and livelihoods and our partner network across India (including with the governments), to support the communities we serve to protect themselves against COVID-19 and to emerge strongly through the resulting economic crisis. AIF’s COVID-19 Humanitarian Preparedness & Response Plan focuses on:  a. Behavior change communications (including digital engagement): We are tackling misinformation, producing and disseminating correct information including digital content on the pandemic and its prevention, including handwashing and social distancing.  b. Promoting community preparedness: We are distributing essential products such as soap, handwash, hand sanitizers, wet wipes and face masks in the community leveraging our rural reach, and demonstrate their usage. In the medium term, our efforts will include local level production of face masks and hand sanitizers will be taken up through social entrepreneurs and production centers run by our partner NGOs.  c. Building long-term resilience of communities: To support post-pandemic recovery, we will be taking up livelihood and employment programs including re-skilling, up-skilling and entrepreneurship for rehabilitation and promoting best practices in Remote Employment. We urge you to make your donations to support AIF’s COVID-19 Humanitarian Preparedness & Response initiative. https://aif.org/donate/covid-19-response/     Once again, I wish you all the strength to withstand this unprecedented disruption and thank you for all your contributions to ensure AIF continues to deliver on its mission to the best of its ability.

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