A new Food Bank Against Hunger (BA) food drive kicks off this Saturday and continues through the weekend, when requests for help nearly doubled from last year.
The campaign, which is being run in person at supermarkets across the country and involving some 40,000 volunteers, has a theme of “Hope” to help families “cope with economic and social hardships,” according to a Food Bank statement.
In addition to the face-to-face weekend campaign, the collection will continue until May 14 with vouchers available in supermarkets or on the online channel www.alimentestaideia.pt.
21 food banks, in collaboration with some 2,600 institutions and organizations active in the field, distribute food daily to more than 400,000 people in Portugal.
According to the BA President, from the beginning of the year until April 20, the institution received 3,330 new requests for help, which is 93% more compared to the same period in 2022, when 1,725 requests were received.
Isabelle Jeunet warned that the real life of the Portuguese matters more than expectations, and “what they feel in their daily lives is that the money they earn is not enough for the needs of the household”, largely through food and housing.
“I think things will continue to get worse in the coming months and I foresee there will also be some reflection from businesses that are hiring and I just hope that unemployment doesn’t start to rise,” he said. .
Regarding the support that has been created for families, Isabelle Jone noted that they are often nothing more than “oxygen tanks” and criticized that nothing is being done to combat structural poverty.
She said she was equally afraid of people who lived through a situation of opportunistic poverty, that is, after the economic crisis, and who “will move into a situation of structural poverty.”
Taking into account these data, Isabelle Jeunet has no doubt that the number of the poor in Portugal will increase in 2023, despite all the social support provided by the government.