By Beatriz Miranda, Contributing Reporter
RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – This Saturday, July 22nd, the Caminhos Language Center is mobilizing volunteers to cook and deliver soup to Rio’s homeless. Starting from 12PM, the action aims to feed at least two hundred people, with Cariocas, expatriates and visitors all volunteering to help.
The event is part of “Caminhos in Action”, a Caminhos Language Center‘s project that organizes one-day actions to positively impact Rio’s underpriviledged areas and help its communities. This is the first time Caminhos is distributing food to Rio’s homeless citizens.
“It has been a long time since we started to think of promoting this action. There are always many people asking for money on the streets, and we were looking for a movement to help them in some way”, says Belinda Casson, Australian expatriate living in Rio and Caminhos’s manager.
The idea of “Caminhos in Action” as a one-day project is to encourage people who do not have the time to commit to long-term social projects. Since it first started, the project has already taken several volunteers to repair a library in the community of Pavão-Pavãozinho, in Copacabana, visit a homeless dogs’ institution, in Jacarepaguá, donate blood, amongst other actions.
Volunteers are asked to gather at 12PM at Caminhos in Ipanema and then head to the house of Tia Maria, a chef who lives in the community of Cantagalo and has already led Brazilian food workshops promoted by Caminhos.
Even though the educational partner project Passei Direto is strengthening the initiative by sending extra volunteers and donating generous funds, Casson says they are still in need of help: “we are calling everyone who wants to make a difference this Saturday. The bigger the group, the more efficient the action”.
For those who cannot attend to the event, Daniela Pacheco, one of Caminhos’s Brazilian volunteers, says it is possible to participate by donating the soup’s ingredients: “We need both fresh items, like carrots and onions, and non perishable ingredients, like noodles, white rice and beans”, she instructed.
Caminhos is also collecting new and used winter clothes to be distributed on Saturday and accepts monetary donations until Friday, July 21st, when the organizers will close the action’s last arrangements.
Anyone interested in participating or donating any item, please contact Daniela or Belinda via email ([email protected]) or WhatsApp (Daniela: +55 21 968987088; Bel WhatsApp + 55 21 9811 91789). Click here to check the action’s Facebook event.
The Caminhos Language Centre was originally founded in 2009 and is one of the largest Portuguese language schools in Rio de Janeiro, offering courses in a casual, relaxed and social environment. Located on Rua Farme de Amoedo 135, in Ipanema, the school is popular with those visiting Rio, and interested in the immersive group activities they offer.