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Within a month, the “Vizinho Amigo” volunteer community, created by 15 university students from Lisbon, already has close to 5500 volunteers across Portugal. This project was launched by a team leaded by Martim Ferreira (2nd year student of the Bachelor in Finance & Accounting of Iscte Business School) and also counted with the participation of two more students from Iscte Business School - Carlos Xavier (on the last year of the Master in Management) and Tomás Carolino (1st year of the Master in Management of Services and Technology).
The volunteer community was created on March 14 with two main goals: to help COVID-19 risk groups, namely the elderly; and promoting volunteering among young people. Volunteers help with grocery and pharmacy purchases for those who need it the most, within their area of residence.
In statements to the newspaper JPN, Martim Ferreira was very happy and surprised by the number of volunteers who have joined the movement: “we created the Instagram page on a Friday night and we were very surprised by the increasing number of participations. When we launched our volunteer form, in the first 10 minutes, we had over 600 enrolments and we even thought that something was not working. ”
Martim explained that the movement was created when universities closed, taking advantage of the idea "that emerged in Italy and then spread to Spain and France". This idea involves giving the “younger neighbors” the task of “gluing A4 papers on their buildings with information, so that the older neighbors know that they are offering help”.
The process of creating the movement was done in parts: “we created an Instagram page, a Facebook page and we created a poster, more striking, and editable, so that the volunteer could put the name and contact there” . Then, a form was created to fill in the volunteers giving rise to a database that is now “very large”, he comments.
The way people get to the movement is through posters, where the contact of volunteers is exposed, in places such as their buildings or even in establishments that are still open in the immediate vicinity, such as pharmacies, supermarkets and grocery stores. There are also people who contact the group through social networks.
One of the missions of “Vizinho Amigo” is to transmit confidence and tranquility to people: “we have phrases on our social networks that the people we help say, as a way of saying thanks”, says Martim. Many volunteers dedicate their time to keeping company: “we want people to feel good, that's why we do this and we provide company”. "We have many elderly people who offer us extra money, but obviously we refuse, because that is not within our objectives", underlines the student.
Martim Ferreira also says that the movement is close to reaching 5,500 volunteers, in continental territory and in Madeira and the Azores. But the group wants to grow and, with that objective, it is trying to form partnerships with parishes and other institutions - such as Banco Alimentar. Data sharing would increase the number of volunteers and reach more people, more efficiently.
The volunteers are organized by place of residence. In Porto and Lisbon, volunteers are distributed by parishes, and in the rest of the country by municipalities, "in order to make it easier to act". He adds that the vast majority of volunteers are from Lisbon, “I think there are municipalities where we don't have them, but there are very few, we are very well distributed throughout the national territory,” he guaranteed.
The “Vizinho Amigo” volunteers are mostly between the ages of 20 and 30, but there is an age limit of up to 60, as, as Martim Ferreira explains, “the volunteer cannot belong to the risk group”. In the first contact with the candidates for volunteers, the group seeks other information: “if the volunteer himself has a disease that prevents him from leaving home, which is dangerous even for the spread of the virus, we do not let him fill out the volunteer form” . Another factor they pay attention to is who the volunteer lives with, that is, if he meets people who are at risk, they are asked to be careful, because it can be dangerous not for the volunteer, but for those who live with him or her.
Martim Ferreira calls on all those who want to participate not to hesitate: “all this media coverage of the virus pointed to us growing rapidly, and our goal is to help the largest number of people,” he told JPN.
Celebrities such as actors Pedro Barroso and Ricardo Pereira have already joined the project as official ambassadors for the cause. Join the movement and get more information through the contacts below:
*News article adapted and translated from JPN, written by Isabel Fernandes (17:55 - 15 Abril, 2020) and edited by Filipa Silva