MIGRANT ASSISTANCE AND INFORMATION NETWORK (MAIN)

Accompanying Distress Migrants

Helpline for Distress Migrants

                                                                                   MIGRANT ASSISTANCE HELPLINE NUMBER: 1-800-891-2995     
Declaration for International Migrants Day

Emergency Interventions of MAIN (April 2023 - March 2024)



Model

a) Connect: Receive calls from distress migrants across India; route calls to concerned State Hub; receive response from State Hub, prepare summary and submit to dashboard.


b) Dashboard: It will maintain the summary of call response, information on government (including state level) schemes and programme, partner information, information for volunteers, etc.


c) Media: Content generation for Social Media platforms, IEC materials, website, events, etc.


d) Policy Advocacy: Undertake research, campaigns, conferences, workshops, IEC materials and publications, etc.


e) Partnership and Collaboration: MAIN works towards effective collaborations, partnerships with government, academic and other institutions, philanthropic organisations, civil society organisations, networks, etc.


f) Resource Mobilisation: It involves exploring resources from different sources.


Central Hub

In order to serve the distress migrants by responding to their distress calls and assisting them with various services, primarily through partners, NGOs, networks and volunteers, efficiently and effectively, the Central Hub, 2 Zonal Hubs and 22 Hubs will work in tandem to build the essential forward and backward linkages. MAIN has the Central Hub in New Delhi considering the strategic importance of the capital city for national-level policy advocacy. 

2 Zonal Hubs

The Zonal Hubs are located in Bagaicha, Ranchi, Jharkhand (for the central-north zone), and Indian Social Institute, Bengaluru, Karnataka (for the south-west zone). These Zonal Hubs will provide training to the respective Hubs under each Zone. Further, they will monitor, facilitate micro action research on distress migrants related issues, conduct seminar/workshops and also engage with and provide policy advocacy. 

22 MAIN Hubs

The 22 MAIN Hubs are located in Patna (Bihar), Dumka (Jharkhand), Chaibasa-Jamshedpur (Jharkhand), Hazaribagh (Jharkhand), Gumla (Jharkhand), Pathalgaon (Chhattisgarh), Kolkata (West Bengal), Darjeeling - Matigara (North Bengal), Kandhamal (Odisha), Sundergarh (Odisha), Delhi, Mumbai, Pune, Hyderabad (Telangana) Andhra Pradesh, Chennai (Tamil Nadu), Bangalore (Karnataka), Kalady (central Kerala), Kozhikode (north Kerala), Trivandrum (south Kerala), Goa and Ahmedabad (Gujarat). Each of the Hub would be the pivot around which the action takes place at the ground level—reaching out to the distress migrants through link person/s from among migrant workers and to assist them with various services---on the basis of the distress calls received and routed from the Central Hub. The team at the Hub studies the content of distress call, initiate response (service as required) to the caller (distress migrant), and prepares the first ATR. Documentation of the ATR will be done at the Hubs.

The specific services of the State Hubs are as follows:

a) Connect with distress migrants and study their issues
b) Guide/advise/assist and provide legal support required, if any
c) Offer appropriate assistance, knowledge/information and linkages
d) Accompany distress migrants to various agencies/employers/government departments, etc
e) Organise motivational/awareness sessions among groups of migrant workers.
f) Coordinate with partner organisations to ensure support services are available to migrant workers.


The Hubs will connect with Central Hub to feed the ATR on the dashboard. They will also engage in policy advocacy, local-level fundraising, partnership building at the State levels.