‘Ação da Cidadania’ Organization Delivers 40 Tons of Food in Rio de Janeiro

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – The non-governmental organization ‘Ação da Cidadania’ (Citizens Action), founded in 1993 by sociologist Herbert de Souza, Betinho, delivered yesterday, April 9th, in partnership with the ‘Bem Maior’ (Greater Good) Movement, 40 tons of non-perishable foodstuffs, hygienic supplies, and 1,200 masks, to representatives of 40 organizations listed by the NGO in the state of Rio de Janeiro.

The goal is to fight hunger during the novel coronavirus pandemic. Each organization took one ton of food to the region where it will serve 100 families, meaning that 4,000 families benefited from this Thursday’s initiative.

In addition to other parts of the country, where 80 tons of food were distributed, ‘Ação da Cidadania’ delivered a total of 120 tons of foodstuffs and hygiene products to the most needy families this week.

“We are collecting many donations, which makes us very happy,” said Kiko Afonso, the NGO’s executive director. According to him, the channels that have received the most frequent donations for the NGO are AME Digital, iFood and Benfeitoria.

So far, the ‘Ação da Cidadania’ has assisted 35,000 families, or around 180,000 people, through their national campaign. According to Kiko Afonso, the next steps are to try to increase collection. The NGO and the ‘Bem Maior’ Movement are in its final negotiation with a major partner, which will provide greater coverage to the campaign by extending the network nationwide.

“The goal of the ‘Ação da Cidadania’ is to reach 100,000 families served per month. To do that, we need to raise R$25 million to help these families for three months,” he said. Afonso said the fundraising for this purpose is currently close to R$4 million.

Philanthropy

Kiko Afonso emphasized the partnership with the ‘Bem Maior’ Movement, which encourages philanthropy in society. “The movement seeks to promote the culture of philanthropy throughout Brazil, among major entrepreneurs, very wealthy families and so on. This group has been mobilizing for a long time and when we started this campaign they came to us, with the aim of helping us build these collection and fundraising bridges”.

Some of the funds raised to fight hunger during the novel coronavirus pandemic were raised through contacts of the ‘Bem Maior’ Movement. The executive director of the ‘Ação da Cidadania’ recalled that the NGO works within a network.

“It is not the NGO that is going to deliver the baskets; it is the organizations listed that the NGO is strengthening, according to Betinho’s vision since the time of trying to establish local leaders to encourage citizenship, human rights. In order to do this, instead of carrying out direct initiatives in the locations, the organization seeks to strengthen the organizations locally so that they can raise more funds in their areas”.

Afonso says he believes that the higher the number of partners, the better they will be able to serve millions of Brazilians who are falling into a situation of food insecurity due to the novel coronavirus crisis.

According to the executive director, the goal of ‘Ação da Cidadania’ is “to be visible as little as possible and to do as much as possible”.

The president of the ‘Bem Maior’ Movement, Carla Matarazzo, stressed that “the hope is to help in the emergent social demands and, concurrently, act in prevention, distributing basic care information to control the spread of the virus”.

“This way, families can have a little more peace of mind in their homes and protect themselves,” Carla said.

Source: Agência Brasil