Support for Families: The Projeto Salva Dor aims to maintain basic services

The coronavirus pandemic has also reached Brazil. There it is hitting an ailing health system and families who cannot hope for support from the state.

The Projeto Salva Dor – place where children can play freely, have safe spaces and receive three meals a day – had to close, like the rest of public life. When it will continue is uncertain. Financial and social consequences will not be long in coming. The food supply is at risk. Families live in quarantine in very confined spaces and social problems are intensifying. The employees of the Projeto Salva Dor help as much as they can to ensure the basic needs of the families. In order to ensure a minimum of social structure, food supply and hygiene, the Projeto Salva Dor would now be particularly grateful for donations to help the families directly.

In their report, the employees describe their current everyday life.

Corona – no childcare in Salvador da Bahia

The Projeto Salva Dor had to close its doors in the wake of the Corona pandemic. Where otherwise up to 50 children run, paint, do gymnastics, handicrafts, listen to stories, sleep and above all eat, there is now silence. We are worried about the continuation of the Projeto, but even more about the wellbeing of the families of São Lázaro. With your support we hope to help where we can.

We are writing these lines to describe the current situation. Official case numbers in the state of Bahia are still relatively low. But the feared consequences are already beginning to materialize. The public health system is ailing and was already overburdened before the Corona Pandemic. The shutdown of public life affects the low-income groups in particular. These include most of the inhabitants of São Lázaro. They often live off the income from casual and day jobs or informal work. They sell food at bus stops, work as day laborers on construction sites, as domestic workers in the households of wealthy families or in the service sector. All these jobs are currently no longer available. In normal times the family income is just enough to barely make ends meet. Savings are rare. If a family member's income breaks down, the families usually stick together and help each other.

Now, for most families, all income is lost. Contributions to the Projeto Salva Dor are out of the question for them. Additionally, the project cannot help in crisis situations in the usual way. It normally provides the children with a lot of essential necessities: affection, space, and above all, regular meals. Instead, the families are staying in very small rooms and apartments – often with three adults and four or five children on 20 square meters in one room – and are now not allowed to go out.

The only distraction is the television and mobile phone, and that is only if the last bill was actually paid.

So there is a lack of food, medical care and structure. As in many countries, a return to normality is currently not in the cards. The government under the right-wing populist Bolsonaro has hardly reacted so far. The social security system had already been frozen before, new applications and resumptions were not being processed.

We, the teachers of the Projeto, are ourselves partly in the at-risk group for the virus and thus are in quarantine. Nevertheless, we still want to help and coordinate the aid. This includes providing many families with food, medicine and games. For this purpose we would like to collect donations.

Here you can donate to the Projeto Salva Dor.