Penn Calendar Penn A-Z School of Arts and Sciences University of Pennsylvania

Organizations Assisting with Current COVID Crisis in India:

University of Pennsylvania Relief Effort:
Penn Medicine Supporting India During COVID-19: Penn Medicine is committing $25,000 in matching donations for funds raised to provide the urgent and essential needs for health care infrastructure and medical supplies in those areas of India where residents are most in need of support. The University of Pennsylvania is pledging an additional $25,000 to match Penn Medicine and to enable us to get to a $100,000 total donation.


If you are interested in supporting COVID-19 relief efforts in India, please consider this list of donation opportunities. The organizations listed here are not endorsed by the Center for the Advanced Study of India (CASI) at the University of Pennsylvania.

American Association of Physicians of Indian Origin (APPIO) located a source manufacturer that supplies a Concentrated Oxygen unit, each of which can save four lives in India. The Indian Embassy and Consulates will assist in the rapid shipping and customs regulations of these lifesaving units. They are working with the AAPI Executive Committee, the Board of Trustees, and the AAPI Charitable Foundation to jump start the response. Donate via Paypal to president@aapio.org.

American India Foundation (AIF) is raising funds for a three-pronged emergency response plan—addressing the acute shortage of health infrastructure, helping those who are at the greatest risk of getting infected, and by focusing on ongoing community-centered interventions. AIF has partnered with digital payments leader Paytm "to provide oxygen concentrators in India."

Association for India’s Development (AID) COVID Relief Fund for India is supporting several ongoing projects to address the pandemic that would benefit from your support. They include five COVID care centers in the Sundarbans, grocery support for 1,200 villages in Tamil Nadu, a COVID call center for rural Chhattisgarh, and a massive dispatch of PPE, oximeters, oxygen concentrators, and thermometers to rural grassroots organizations in several states, to name just a few. To support this work, make a tax-exempt donation directly on their website: https://aidindia.org/donate/covid-relief-fund/. If you have any questions about AID India, or would like to volunteer with the organization, sign up at https://aidindia.org/volunteer/

GiveIndia: South Asian students from across the US are partnering with GiveIndia to support NGOs like Doctors for You, Project Mumbai, and others that are helping provide critical equipment and supplies to hospitals and COVID care centers, and could use funding to impact several more (more details in FAQ here).

Goonj is responding to the continued COVID crisis by raising funds and donating urgently needed materials such as food, clothes, medicine and more.

Helping India Together, which serves impoverished peoples of India through education, health care, empowering marginalized groups, and leadership development, is in Phase II of its COVID relief plan: food, health care, and veterinary care for the poor and marginalized; Internet access for students obtaining online education; and training for counselors due to an increase in COVID-related anxiety, depression, and suicide.

Hope Foundation: Irish NGO that provides health services to street children in Kolkata and has been converting its wards to treat COVID patients.

Indian Red Cross is providing ambulance transportation and oxygen in hard-hit cities, administering vaccines, and handing out masks, food, and hygiene supplies in rural and urban areas.

Indiaspora and its ChaloGive fund, which engages with Indian diaspora, started a specific fund for India COVID relief.

Ketto is an Indian crowdfunding site currently focused on raising funds for oxygen supplies for Indian hospitals.

Oxfam India is distributing PPE at health facilities and intends to make direct cash transfers to the most vulnerable households.

Rapid Response, an India-based disaster relief agency, is supplying food to vulnerable communities including migrant laborers, front-line workers, and the elderly.

TIDES: South Asia COVID-19 Crisis and Recovery Fund, an unprecedented Tides Donor Advised Fund centering South Asia's most vulnerable in the fight against COVID—ensuring a just recovery for caste-oppressed, religious minorities, LGBTQ, and rural communities who are facing a pandemic within a pandemic.

UNICEF is providing supplies including oxygen concentrators, COVID test kits and PPE to health care facilities. UNICEF’s Mumbai office is working to keep public bathrooms in densely populated neighborhoods sanitized, and has installed elbow-operated faucets and promoted hand-washing in schools.

United Way: Worldwide COVID Relief Fund for India.