Catholic groups work to feed Brazilians affected by job losses

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

“The pandemic has not only affected those who live on the streets. It has affected even those who have homes,” Father Revislande dos Santos Araújo of Our Lady Consolata Parish in Boa Vista told Catholic News Service. .

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 on the streets and Brazilians who have lost their jobs.

In 2015, the priest cooked and distributed meals in the neighborhoods of Boa Vista. “At the beginning, 40 meals were prepared per day, but by the end of the first year, thanks to donations, we were distributing 70 meals,” he said.

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

“We saw that many were unable to reach shelters and were setting up camps around the main bus station. They often had no food to eat, so we extended our Stirring the Pot to help them as well,” did he declare. “With the pandemic, we are providing 1,200 to 1,500 meals a day for those living on the streets.”

There has been a huge increase in poverty and people often don’t have enough to eat

In addition to the homeless and refugees, he said, his parishioners, people with very few means, are also suffering.

“We live in a poor neighborhood, our parishioners are poor people. The majority are construction workers, cleaners, etc. With the pandemic, these people have lost their jobs. There has been a huge increase in poverty and people often don’t have enough to eat – something that before (the pandemic) we didn’t see often,” he said.

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

However, donations are dwindling.

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“Those who used to give a kilo of beans, a kilo of rice, are now asking for donations. there are a lot of my parishioners who used to help and now can’t because they struggle to put food on the table themselves,” he said.

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

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

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

The campaign, dubbed Animating Hope, plans to raise food and financial resources to buy food baskets to distribute to vulnerable families.

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

He said Caritas had 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.

Let’s reach out as best we can so these people don’t have to suffer so much.

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

With unemployment rising and food insecurity on the rise, the Archdiocese, through Caritas, has also created a Committee to Fight Hunger and initiated a number of actions to mobilize and unite parishes and parishioners.

“There are many people who are suffering. Let’s help. Let’s help them as best we can so that these people don’t suffer so much,” Cardinal Odilo Pedro Scherer said on his weekly radio show.

Other entities linked to the Catholic Church have also intervened to provide assistance. The Brazilian branch of AVSI, a Milan-based organization founded on Catholic social teaching, has run three separate programs to tackle this problem: two food basket campaigns and now a program offering meal vouchers to 500 families whose the children attended day care. funded by AVSI. With the schools closed, these children cannot eat breakfast and lunch at the centre.

“We are now trying to get the daycare reopened, because a lot of these children depended 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.”

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