Last Wednesday, December 2nd, we held our first ever webinar to mark the 36th anniversary of the Bhopal gas disaster. The event featured talks from a range of experts covering different aspects of the disaster and its ongoing impact, as well as the current campaign to safeguard survivors from Covid-19. The full webinar is now available to view on Youtube:
Watch the webinar here
The event was hosted by Bridget Hanna, a medical anthropologist and research specialist on Bhopal, who studied the health impacts of the disaster for her doctoral degree. Our first speaker Joe Jackson, Managing Director of Keltbray Remediation, spoke about the ongoing toxic contamination at the site and a possible roadmap to remediation. Our second speaker, Dr. Dr Sanjay Shrivastava of the Sambhavna clinic, spoke about long-term health impact of the disaster on survivors and common health conditions resulting from exposure. Matrushri Shetty, Director of Programs and Strategy at the Lung Cares Foundation, then spoke about the high vulnerability of Bhopal gas survivors to Covid-19 due to gas exposure and suggested some steps that might be taken to help protect their health. Our final talk was from Tabassum Ara, Community Health Worker at Sambhavna, who spoke about the creation of the Community Shield Campaign, the steps being taken to safeguard survivors, and the current figures for infections and deaths in the areas where the work is taking place. Sathyu Sarangi, Managing Trustee of Sambhavna, kindly translated for Tabassum.
We are delighted with the how the event went and are looking forward to putting on more in the future. A huge thank you to Bridget, all of our speakers, and everyone who joined us from around the world for making it such a special event and showing your support for the survivors in Bhopal.
If you would like to learn more about the Bhopal’s Community Shield campaign to protect survivors from Covid-19, or support our work, visit our GoFundMe page by clicking here
