ANKARA

Amid the novel coronavirus pandemic, a voluntary service launched by a group of young people in Azerbaijan's capital city of Baku went viral and turned into a nationwide campaign to support those in need.

Adil Abdullayev, a coordinator of the campaign "Stay at home but don’t stay indifferent", told Anadolu Agency that on March 28, seven young people came together and decided to help the families of those who lost their jobs and incomes due to the epidemic in the country.

"At the beginning, with our own resources, we collected some money and started helping others," he said.

Abdullayev said they noticed that messages on social media seeking assistance such as food packages began increasing and the team decided to change the initiative into a help campaign, adding that on March 30, they posted information for collecting money for those in need on a Facebook and Instagram page so that whoever wanted could contribute.

"Afterwards, the number of people donating funds rose, and we managed to expand the project," he said.

He said although on the first day thanks to the donations the team helped 58 families, in the coming days, the number of families they helped daily climbed to 100, 120, 150 and eventually 500.

In slightly over three weeks, the team managed to reach over 4,350 families.

"While the team started the project with seven people, now we are over 100 people, and we tried to establish a systematic work principle so it could function properly in the face of the many help applications we receive daily," he said.

Calling the people who donated funds to the campaign "hidden heroes," Abdullayev said the help would be impossible without their support.

"I would like to thank them for trusting us and making donations so we could help people," he said.

He went on to say that the team receives the help applications though their campaign page on Facebook and Instagram, where seven team members check around 400-500 applications of families daily and pass them to team members in charge of a "call center" which contacts the applicants and verifies their needs.

After "filtering" the applications through phone calls, the list of people is sent to team members who arrange the itinerary for the logistics team, which delivers the food and provision packages to the addresses in their own cars.

"For instance, if the itinerary team receives 150 applications, they draw up 15 different routes for the logistics team where each car takes 10 packages and delivers them to the addresses the following day."

Due to the COVID-19 curfew restrictions in the country, the team cooperated with a volunteer organization supported by the government which helped around 35 team members obtain the special pass who either work at a depot preparing the packages for families or deliver items with their own cars, he said.

Abdullayev said after noticing that even those 35 members were not enough for meeting the daily needs of people, the team made an open call to volunteers to join the campaign, and as a result, the team now conducts its daily work with over 120 volunteers.

Post-quarantine period

Noting that all of the organizers of the campaign have their own jobs which they will continue after the curfew, Abdullayev said they have not made up their minds yet on how the campaign will continue functioning after the quarantine period ends in Azerbaijan.

"We are thinking of ways to continue this campaign. Either we will distribute items on weekends or we will hire some people who can continue the work."

He underlined that when launching the project, the organizers decided not to bind the campaign to any NGO or public union and instead run it as an open campaign to "eliminate doubts of people on misusing the funds,” adding the campaign is a sign of "civil solidarity" with no ties to or advertisement of any organization.

Abdullayev said the organizers on a daily basis share the amount of donations received on the campaign's social media pages as well as clearly show all spending, bills and the remaining balance of the account.

During the first 24 days, more than 133,200 Azerbaijani manats (over $78,300) were donated to the campaign, he said.

He added that a number of famous people, celebrities and bloggers highlighted the campaign on their blogs and pages, helping to spread the campaign on the internet.

Nationwide campaign

Togrul Alakbarov, another organizer of the campaign, said that besides processing help applications on its social media pages, many volunteers also joined the campaign from other regions of the country and offered their help in delivering the items to people in need in those regions.

As a result, the campaign crossed the capital city of Baku and reached more than 10 regions of Azerbaijan, he said.

"We try as much as possible to deliver help to all of Azerbaijan, but of course we are limited in our abilities," Alakbarov said.

He said the campaign went viral and donations came not only from Azerbaijan but also from many other countries, especially from Azerbaijani nationals living in Europe and the US.

"I call our expatriates to continue being active in this campaign because they are examples for one another."

Alakbarov said the campaign "reminds people of humanity," adding that "we should help each other to keep humanity alive."

He said a number of companies in the country also joined the campaign and donated their products to be delivered to people in need.

Calling on everyone to help each other to overcome the "difficult times," Alakbarov said no single country or government can overcome the difficulties alone without the nation's help and solidarity.

"We should not only look to history for heroes. Our youth need heroes today, and you may be these heroes today.”

The number of coronavirus cases In Azerbaijan reached 1,548 on Thursday, while 20 people have lost their lives due to the pandemic. A total of 948 people in the country have recovered from COVID-19, while the treatment of 580 patients continues.

Azerbaijan imposed a nation-wide lockdown due to the outbreak between March 31 and April 20, and then extended the curfew until May 4.

Since first appearing in Wuhan, China last December, the virus, officially known as COVID-19, has spread to at least 185 countries and regions.

The number of cases worldwide has passed 2.7 million with more than 190,800 deaths while at least 742,800 have recovered from the virus, according to data compiled by Johns Hopkins University in the US.