It's not just adults who are experiencing bouts of anxiety and helplessness during the lockdown, but children as well. Members of Mumbai non-profit Apni Shala sensed the distress when they began reaching out to members of lower income groups last month. The NGO has been actively working towards building life skills among municipal school students since 2013. With regular activities suspended, the initial intention was to help households with essentials. "We did that in the first two weeks, where we became a conduit between families and community kitchens because we were able to source contact numbers of families given our association with the BMC," says CEO Rohit Kumar.

The objective was soon broadened to include mental aid in line with the inputs they received while conversing with parents. "People shared that their children have become more aggressive since the lockdown was first announced. Some said the kids are feeling lonely as they do not get a chance to play with their friends. We may not notice it, but children are very sensitive to what is going on around them," says Kumar. Over the last two months, the team has helped 2,000 families in Kurla, Chembur and Ghatkopar through their interventions. This includes not just supporting them with ration, but also offering well researched content on emotional resilience in their language and devising games that families, which do not have access to resources, can indulge in. "Because our team is trained to handle mental health issues, we built a psycho-social first aid kit to assess the emotional assistance an individual needs. It's the mental equivalent of physical first aid. Injuries might be easy to see and fix, but that's not necessarily the case with trauma." He points out that children living in challenging home environments are especially vulnerable.