---
id: "virtual-communities:case/humankind-global"
type: "GovLab case study"
title: "HumanKind Global"
url: "https://virtual-communities.thegovlab.org/case/humankind-global"
date: "2021-02-19"
summary: "Volunteers fulfill more than 25,000 requests for pandemic-related help"
source: "The GovLab (virtual-communities.thegovlab.org)"
licence: "Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/)"
---

# HumanKind Global

**Volunteers fulfill more than 25,000 requests for pandemic-related help**

- Founding year: 2020
- Group size: 51500
- Location: India
- Part of: [The Power of Virtual Communities](https://virtual-communities.thegovlab.org/)

## Introduction

When India went into a nationwide lockdown in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, restrictions on movement affected how people across the country could access medicine, food and other supplies that they needed on a daily basis. As people with compromised immune systems are at particularly high risk, many people living with HIV/AIDS feared traveling to clinics and labs to pick up medication. Needing help, some turned to HumanKind Global, a network of thousands of volunteers across India and other countries who coordinate mutual aid via a Facebook group and several groups on WhatsApp. HumanKind Global volunteers delivered HIV medication to more than 170 people across India during those first four weeks.

HumanKind Global (previously known as Caremongers India) was created in March 2020 by 39-year old Mahita Nagaraj, a self-employed digital marketing professional and single mother based in Bangalore. In six months, the group has grown to more than 50,000 members who have fulfilled more than 25,000 requests for help across India and 14 other countries.[1] "In a time of fear, anxiety and panic, we should spread love and care to those who are struggling," Nagaraj [told The Straits Times](https://www.straitstimes.com/asia/south-asia/coronavirus-over-22000-caremongers-help-vulnerable-and-elderly-indians-under).

## How it All Started

In mid-March, as the number of coronavirus cases in India rose, Mahita Nagaraj [began to receive](https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-52045544) requests for help from friends who lived overseas, asking if she could deliver medicine and food to their elderly parents around Bangalore. Realizing that many in the city were in high-risk groups due to either their age or pre-existing health conditions, Nagaraj posted on Facebook an offer to deliver necessary supplies to anyone in the city who needed help. She was met with a flood of responses; for every one person requesting assistance, several more were asking Nagaraj how they could help.

Needing a structured way to coordinate this growing volunteer network, Nagaraj created a Facebook group, originally known as Caremongers India, on March 17, 2020. The group’s original name was inspired by a [BBC article](https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-51915723) about “Caremongering,” a trend where people on Facebook in cities across Canada set up mutual aid communities to spread kindness and support as an antidote to “scaremongering” about the coronavirus. Nagaraj changed the group’s name to HumanKind Global in February of 2021.

Since many elderly Indians were not on Facebook, Nagarj also set up a WhatsApp line that those in need could call or text to request help. “At one point in time we were adding 2,000 to 3,000 members a day to the Facebook group, and the helpline was exploding,” Nagaraj told us. “We were receiving 800 to 1,000 calls a day and 2,500 WhatsApp messages.” She attributes this rapid growth to the high demand for help among vulnerable populations during India’s coronavirus lockdown, which was among the strictest in the world. Many elderly Indians also depend on external help, such as chauffeurs, public transit and delivery services, which were unavailable throughout much of the lockdown.

## Leadership

The size of the group’s leadership team has fluctuated along with the group’s growth. At one point, it had as many as a dozen moderators, but as of August 2020 the group was run by Nagaraj along with two other admins and one moderator. This “core team” (as Nagaraj describes the quartet) is responsible for moderating membership and approving and tagging posts, as well as matching volunteers to requests that come in through the helpline. When Nagaraj noticed volunteers who were particularly active, she invited them to take on leadership roles as coordinators for certain cities or areas. “As the group grew, their roles grew in size and form, from being just city coordinators to being part of the team that headed states, or that helped disseminate information, to then being part of the core team,” Nagaraj explains.

Those in need can request help anonymously by calling or texting a WhatsApp number, which Nagaraj and the core team operate. Depending on where the requester is located, the team may then push the request to one of several WhatsApp groups, composed of volunteers in cities across India, or post the request to the Facebook group. People can also post requests directly to the Facebook group. Nagaraj says that requesters typically find a volunteer to help them within 30 seconds of posting to the group.

Nagaraj set up seven rules for the Facebook group, which prohibit hate speech and bullying, advertising, spam, and fundraising, and encourage members to be kind and courteous. Nagaraj says that members’ behavior in the group has not been a major issue, and that this simple set of rules has been enough to keep things civil.

## Participation

The group is public and visible, meaning that anyone can find it, read its posts, and request membership. While primarily active in India, the group has members from 100 countries and has run requests in 14 other countries.

On the “supply” side, people volunteer their time and skills. The accessibility of the public Facebook group provides a low barrier to entry - all someone needs to do in order to join as a volunteer is send a post or message making themself available. Nagaraj estimates there are 8,000 to 10,000 volunteers who are actively running requests for those in need.

On the “demand” side, Nagaraj says HumanKind Global primarily caters to four vulnerable populations that:

- Are older than 60
- Have pre-existing medical conditions
- Have physical disabilities
- Are pregnant women or new mothers

## Action

HumanKind Global has delivered groceries and medicine, and organized blood donations and nursing assistance, among many other requests it has answered. Nagaraj says the nature of requests has evolved; while early on there was a high demand for medical assistance or people asking to be driven to their doctor’s appointment, as India’s lockdown has been rolled back, the group has fulfilled more requests for information, for instance, about travel restrictions.

In addition to fielding ad hoc requests, HumanKind Global has also streamlined the request matching process by compiling a database of people in need. Anyone who anticipated needing help during India’s extended lockdown could register their name in the database online. A team of 50 - 60 HumanKind Global volunteers then contacted each of the 2,500 registrants to ask their location and what type of assistance they may need over the next one or two weeks. Nagaraj says this “citizens’ database” helped registrants to feel more secure, “since they knew they were being looked after,” and helped HumanKind Global streamline their response during the country’s lockdown, since they could more effectively plan how to allocate resources.

## Outcome and Impact

Of the more than 25,000 requests fulfilled by HumanKind Global volunteers, several actions stand out as particularly impactful.

A couple in the southern state of Kerala was in need of medication for their seven month-old infant, who suffered from epileptic seizures, but they were unable to find the medicine anywhere near them during the lockdown. Knowing that their child could face lifelong chronic health effects if they did not receive the medication within 72 hours, the couple reached out to HumanKind Global via the WhatsApp helpline. Volunteers delivered the medication from the state of Maharashtra (some 1,000 km away) with two hours to spare. HumanKind Global was able to coordinate this feat during a time when non-essential travel was not permitted and medicine was in short supply.

In another case, a 74-year old man returned to his apartment complex in Kolkata after spending six months visiting family in Australia. Despite completing the mandatory quarantine, the building’s security guards were still fearful that the man might be carrying coronavirus and could transmit it to others, and locked him inside his nearly-empty apartment. The man contacted the HumanKind Global helpline, and a volunteer brought him food, water, and his medication. “The volunteer only left the premises after he got an assurance from one of the neighbors that they would look after this gentleman and make sure that he was well looked-after,” Nagaraj says.

## Challenges

Keeping up with the pace of growth has been a challenge for the group, which gained several thousand members in its first week, and continued to grow rapidly throughout the lockdown. Nagaraj says that she spent up to 22 hours per day coordinating requests during the lockdown, which she did on an unpaid, volunteer basis. While membership is no longer growing as rapidly, she says she “didn’t have a moment to breathe” from the group’s founding in March, until the end of July 2020.

One operational challenge has been deciding which requests the group should and should not fulfill. Nagaraj says that India’s government has set up its own programs to assist people dealing with coronavirus-related issues and that HumanKind Global has to be mindful that the help they provide does not take people away from these official channels. For instance, the group does not coordinate blood donation for those seeking plasma therapy as a treatment for COVID-19, since such treatment is regulated by the government.

Some have also tried to take advantage of the group’s kindness to request help when they don’t need it. For example, Nagaraj says that around a fifth of the requests the group has received are from healthy people who just don’t feel like leaving home. “I would get requests from people who wanted me to bring them butter chicken and pizza and tacos,” Nagaraj explains. “They were healthy citizens who simply didn’t want to go out and put themselves at risk.” Nagaraj says that after a couple of these bogus requests, she began contacting requesters over the phone and asking screening questions to make sure they really needed help before dispatching a volunteer.

When asked about operating on Facebook or WhatsApp,  Nagaraj did not raise any concerns. Rather, she says that as a completely volunteer-run project, HumanKind Global depends on free tools from Facebook and WhatsApp to carry out its work.

## Future Prospects

Nagaraj wants to transform HumanKind Global into a community that continues to help people after the pandemic. She hopes that registering the group as a nonprofit will help the community to continue to expand beyond India. “The nature of activity will remain the same, which is that we will be a volunteer-driven organization, but one that exists internationally and not just locally,” Nagaraj explains.

## Lessons learned

- **Be willing to adapt -** Nagaraj says that part of the group’s strength is its ability to adapt as the nature of requests changes. “Our philosophy at the beginning was that help would be offered to those who asked for it,” she explains. “The nature of help, to this day, remains completely undefined. If you need something done, you come forward and ask for it, and we’ll find a way to make sure it gets done.” In a context where travel restrictions and public health guidance can change by the hour, if not the minute, this flexibility to adapt has never been more valuable.
- **More than just a trend -** While the popularity of “caremongering,” and kindness-first, mutual aid communities has grown since the pandemic began, HumanKind Global stands out for its real-world impact at scale. It is an organized, volunteer-led crisis response platform that provides substantive help to those most in need. “We formed as a community in response to a pandemic, a certain environmental situation,” Nagaraj says. “I think one of the strengths of the group has been our ability to respond as required to whatever the situation has thrown at us.”

## End notes

1. As of October 2020