| 4. In which ways is the initiative creative and innovative?
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To what concerns the Food Bank, the action plan included:
1. Structuring and implementation of the program;
2. Space qualification, assembling and installation of the Food Bank;
3. Acquisition of equipments and permanente materials;
4. Training of the operational team;
5. Selection and registration of institutions;
6. Follow-up, evaluation and systematization of the program.
To what concerns SEFRAS, our action plan included a diagnosis of each of our projects by our team; and, through the initiative and an articulation the Food Bank, the strengthening of these projects. That way, we got to implement a good quality work.
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| 5. Who implemented the initiative and what is the size of the population affected by this initiative?
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The implemantation of the Food Bank was an initiative of the government of the city of São Paulo, in 2002. During her mandate, the Mayor Marta Suplicy implemented the Municipal Program that promoted and incentivated jointly with non-profit social organizations the reduction of food waste. The partnership with SEFRAS initiated during the promotion of the work of the Food Bank. The municipal government promoted it through the distribution of brochures. All this happened ten years ago. We already had our organization that received people in vulnerability in São Paulo, and, then, the Friars Reinaldo Ameixeira and André Gurzynski, had the opportunity to know more about the initiave of the Food Bank, and soon after, they registrated our organization.
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| 6. How was the strategy implemented and what resources were mobilized?
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The provision of services from the Food Bank is a public program. The facilities of the Bank are situated in a public espace that were deactivated after a municipal market closed its doors. That espace is a wide area that has been well used for the works of the Bank. The government of the city of São Paulo is responsible for covering all the costs of maintaining the espace, such as surveillence services, water, electricity, telephones, transportation, among others; hiring of human resources, such as nutritionists, social workers, administrative and operational staff; acquisition of technical equipments and permanent materials; training of the operational staff and for those responsible for the registrations of the social organizations.
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| 7. Who were the stakeholders involved in the design of the initiative and in its implementation?
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“When we had to look for other segments of society to keep the cost of food in the projects we could not find any”.
Every time the institution (Franciscan Solidarity Service) presented its projects searching for new partners who could invest on them, we witnessed some speeches full of prejudice against the people we were welcoming, people living with HIV/AIDS. At that time, almost fifteen years ago, we could not approach this kind of matter. People were afraid of catching a deasease, so there was a lot of difficulties on getting any kind of help.
But we needed a solution. We realized that, due to a strong medication when treating HIV/AIDS, people had to eat properly. That was when we knew about the Food Bank. Through this succesful partnership we got to subsidize all the food for our projects, including the project focused on the homeless people. Some organizations do not establhis a partnership, because they believe that theses people find themselves in theses situations because they want to. This is why we realized how important is the work of the Food Bank. Through it, we have received several donations of food and other products from hipermarkets and expensive labels, fruits and vegetables, all coming from public institutions. This was the solution we found to keep our projects existing.
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| 8. What were the most successful outputs and why was the initiative effective?
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When we verified the meaning of food, we realized the importance of meeting with this first human necessity. We realized the greatness of what we could do to those homeless people. Our program for them, called “O Chá do Padre”, gathers more than 200 people at public espaces and carries out daily activities based on several matters related to the people living on the streets. We got to create a range of activities due to this program, such as film sessions, community radio, rounds of conversations to talk about the questions that lead to chemical dependency, alcoholism, human traffic and violence.
While monitoring and evaluating the program, we got to expand these actions. Currently, we are able to bring health service to people living on the streets, such as medical consultations and laboratory examinations. What had started as a simple donation of food and, then, developed to offering food education and professional assistance, now offers healthe services. We got to the conclusion that food is the entrance for all other forms of action.
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| 9. What were the main obstacles encountered and how were they overcome?
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Our franciscan institution does not have any partnership or linkage to any major label or company. In this case, the obstacles for funding are huge. But, through the partnership with the Food Bank, we got to overcome one of them: to offer our beneficiaries a balanced nourishment, and we could only enrich our work.
When we still did not have the partnership with the Bank, we had a certain preoccupation with the budget for feeding. That was when we understood we had an urgency for searching for new partners to keep our projects for the homeless people, people living with HIV/AIDS, the elderly, imprisoned women and teenagers in problems with the law, to concerns feeding. We would not have had how to strengthen theses programs without the support and structure the Food Bank offers us. The appreciation of the food is a characteristic of the franciscan work, that is whay we recognize the Bank’s valuable contribution.
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