German-Indian Business Forum starts collecting funds to help COVID-hit India

The Indian community in Germany is pulling out all stops to send help to fellow citizens back in India as the Asian country struggles to rein in the rising number of COVID-19 cases and deaths. Community sources told The Munich Eye that the German-Indian Business Forum (Deutsches-Indisches Wirtschaftsforum) in cooperation with German-Indian Association has launched a campaign to collect funds on Betterplace.org, a non-profit donation platform.

The campaign O2 for India (Sauerstoff fur Indien) is targeting 3 million Euros and hopes to collect the amount by July or August, the Forum's chief marketing officer Gaurav Tomar said. "The funds will be sent to India through multiple agencies but not limited to Indian Red Cross, Save Life Foundation, C-CAMP, Swasth et al," Tomar added.

As India reels under a shortage of oxygen, vaccines and medicines to fight the third phase of the epidemic, it is seeing more than 300,000 COVID-19 cases and close to 4000 deaths daily.

We are collecting donations to provide immediate medical assistance to India. All the collected funds will be channelled into necessary efforts and to help people affected by the second wave of COVID-19, says the campaign on betterplace.org.

The Indian diaspora in Germany has about 180,000 members. Cash donations will be used in four different ways:

1. Procure and donate medical oxygen concentrators.

2. Provide medicine packages.

3. Support vaccination drives.

4. Support to scale rapid testing facilities.

According to the campaign, donors will have an option to generate a tax-deductible receipt while donating through Betterplace.org.

Image by Gerd Altmann