Catholic groups work to feed Brazilians affected by COVID-19 crisis, jobs lost

As unemployment rises and COVID-19 infections rise in Brazil, Catholic entities are stepping up efforts to feed the growing number of hungry people.

“The pandemic has not only affected those who live on the streets. It touched even those who have houses, ”said Father Revislande dos Santos Araújo from the parish of Our Lady Consolata in Boa Vista.

The priest, who started a social project called Stirring the Pot in 2015 to distribute meals to drug addicts and the homeless, now also serves meals and distributes food to Venezuelan refugees camped in the streets and to Brazilians who have lost. their jobs.

In 2015, the priest was cooking and distributing meals in the districts of Boa Vista.

“At the beginning, 40 meals were prepared per day, but by the end of the first year, with the help of donations, we were distributing 70 meals,” said Father Araújo.

With the arrival of Venezuelans in 2016, he explained, the initiative has become a larger project.

“We saw that many failed to get into the shelters and set up a camp around the main bus station,” Father Araújo said.

“Often they didn’t have food to eat, so we also extended our Stirring the Pot to help them.

“With the pandemic, we are providing 1,200 to 1,500 meals a day for those who live on the streets.”

In addition to the homeless and refugees, Father Araújo said, his parishioners, people with very little means, are also suffering.

“We live in a poor neighborhood; our parishioners are poor people. The majority are construction workers, housekeepers, etc. », Said Father Araújo.

“With the pandemic, these people have lost their jobs. There has been a huge increase in poverty and people often do not have enough to eat – something that before (pandemic) we often did not see.

“For Venezuelans who live in tents near the bus station, we send meals, while for Brazilian families, we send them food packages, so they can cook at home. “

However, donations are decreasing.

“Those who gave a kilo of beans, a kilo of rice are now asking for donations,” said Father Araújo.

“I try to reach out, by organizing live events on the internet to ask for help, but there are a lot of my parishioners who were helping and who can’t anymore now because they are struggling to put of the food on the table themselves.

Father Araújo, who teaches in the city’s public schools, recalled that more than one of his students had contacted him saying: “My mother has lost her job, we don’t have enough to eat at home. .

The decrease in the number of volunteers and donations is also observed in other regions of Brazil. Now, a campaign promoted by the Archdiocese of São Paulo with the charitable aid agency Caritas aims not only to collect money and food for vulnerable people, but also to encourage new volunteers to intervene and to contribute.

“Despite solidarity, things are getting more complicated. The people who helped are now unemployed, ”said Fr Marcelo Maróstica Quadro, director of Caritas and pastoral coordinator of the Belém region in São Paulo.

The campaign, called Animating Hope, plans to collect food and financial resources to purchase food baskets to distribute to vulnerable families.

“Hunger is a reality that goes against God’s plan,” said Father Quadro.

He said Caritas has mapped 450 “hope points”, where it collects and distributes meals and food baskets. Most of the parishes around São Paulo serve as points of hope.

At the start of the pandemic, he said, Saint Joseph Parish was distributing 40 to 50 food baskets per month. “Now we are distributing over 300,” he added.

With the rise in unemployment and the increase in food insecurity, the archdiocese, through Caritas, also created a Committee to fight against hunger and implemented a number of actions to mobilize and unite the parishes. and parishioners.

“There are a lot of people who are suffering. Let us help each other, ”Cardinal Odilo Pedro Scherer said on his weekly radio show.

“Let’s reach out as best we can so that these people do not suffer so much. “

Other entities linked to the Catholic Church have also mobilized to help.

The Brazilian branch of AVSI, an organization based in Milan and founded on Catholic social education, has run three separate programs to address this problem: two food basket campaigns and now a program offering meal vouchers for 500 families. whose children attended daycare. funded by AVSI. As schools are closed, these children cannot have lunch and lunch at the center.

“We are now trying to reopen the daycare, because many of these children were dependent on these meals,” said Fabrizio Pellicelli, president of AVSI in Brazil.

Situations like these are repeated across the country.

“In a country like ours, everything that is planted grows,” said Father Quadro.

“There should be no reason for our people to go hungry. The government lacks policies to reduce food insecurity in this country.