The family of Manan Thakur, a barber who was on the verge of destitution due to the ongoing lockdown, has begun receiving financial assistance and food donated by Nepalis from various walks of life.

The Post and its sister publication Kantipur had run a story on the situation of Thakur family on Saturday, leading a number of people to read about his plight and reach out to help. Thakur, who’s been operating a salon in Kathmandu for 30 years now, has had no business for more than two months now. The lockdown, imposed by the government to contain the spread of Covid-19, entered its 76th day on Sunday.

After the Post ran the report, Twitter user @aneekarma, who asked that she only be identified by her social media username, initiated a campaign to help Thakur. She has been coordinating the collection of funds and distributing them to different people who are in dire need of assistance. The government has largely failed to provide relief for the hardest hit by the lockdown—daily wage workers.

Earlier, the same Twitter user had collected funds for Dambar Bahadur Simkhada for the treatment of his wife, Sita, who is a kidney patient. A group of good samaritans had collected Rs200,000 from around 150 people and deposited the amount in Simkhada’s bank account.

The Post, on June 1, had carried a photo story of Simkhada taking his wife to the hospital for dialysis on a push cart as he could not find an ambulance due to the ongoing lockdown.

The group had then collected funds for the family of Malar Sada, who walked over 120kms to reach his home in Saptari from Biratnagar and, according to his family members, died of acute hunger on May 19.

“Since the news broke about the condition of the Sada family, they have been receiving help—financial and otherwise—from a a lot of people so we did not donate to them but rather focused on those who needed assistance immediately,” @aneekarma told the Post. “This includes elderly, single mothers, poor families, malnourished, new mothers and their babies or anyone who has been left out and needs help.”

The group extended financial help of Rs 50,000 to the family of 30-year-old Birendra Yadav of Dhanusa, who died of hunger and a lack of medical support on May 26, upon reaching the Jatahi border point in Dhanusa after a grueling journey from Gujarat, India.

Following Saturday’s news report, members of the group, including journalist Sunny Mahat of the Annapurna Express, handed over Rs15,000 to the Thakur family.

Thakur, who hails from Birgunj, had run out of money, even to buy medicines, and food for his family with no business for the last 75 days. He is the sole breadwinner of the family and has a wife and two daughters, 11th and 12 graders, and a son who studies in class 10.

The family until Sunday afternoon has received four sacks of rice, other food items and Rs17,000 as help from various sources.

“We didn’t have anything to eat until yesterday. Now we have been provided with four sacks of rice,” said Thakur, “All that remains now is to pay the rent for our room, the salon and my daughters’ college fees.”

On Friday, when his family was about to run out of food, Thakur decided to open his salon in the Ghattekulo area but his landlord padlocked the shop saying that he hadn’t paid rent for three months. He owes Rs27,000 to his landlord.

“If I could pay the rent I would set my shop elsewhere,” said Thakur.

Meanwhile, Thakur’s elder daughter, Saraswati, who completed her grade 12 a year ago from Times College has yet to collect her mark sheet and character certificate as the family hasn’t been able to pay fees amounting to Rs40,000.

“I haven’t been able to claim my certificate from the college as we haven’t been able to pay the fees,” said Saraswati.

Likewise, the family also has not been able to pay the college fees for their younger daughter which amounts to Rs100,000.