Learning to grow stronger, together and beyond

The COVID-19 pandemic is challenging us all to learn new ways of doing things at an incredible rate. Together with new home office practices, parents are having to learn to support their children as teachers find ways to teach them via Distance Learning. Many of us have had to improve our cooking skills (whether we like it or not), to pay attention to every single action we take at home (“you used it, you clean it”), but most of all, we are learning how to be mindful of each other.

Brazil does not have a strong winter season, so we are not used to staying indoors at all. Especially here in Rio, everything is about the sun, the beach, the forest, the parks… and together with all that, comes the “service culture”. We are pampered, all the time, by hard working smiling people that make their living out of giving us what we wish for, when and where we need it. Since quarantine started, there has been no refreshing coconut water after a run, no “mate gelado with biscoito globo”, and no guys on the streets to help us find a good spot to park our car.

For many of us, it is annoying not to be able to keep our leisure routine, not to work out, or see our friends or get a nice tan. But for many in the service and informal sectors, it means not having food to give to their families or to buy soap to wash their hands and keep them safe from getting sick.

It is critical at times like that communities look to those less fortunate and do what they can to help. So, in order to provide much-needed support, we launched a campaign in our EARJ Community.

In the past 10 days, we have raised over R$30,000, which will allow us to assist around 150 families in Rocinha by donating food, milk, cleaning products, diapers, etc. We have partnered with Instituto Reação that also plays a strong role in Rocinha, and together with them, we have purchased “digital food baskets”, meaning that a family gets a card to purchase items in their local market, helping the local business as well.

We are so thankful and proud of the amazing spirit our community has shown, the spirit we have always cherished throughout 83 years of EARJ history.

Now we believe we can go beyond by increasing not only our support to Rocinha, but also by helping other communities in need. It is time to show our support to more amazing people who’d rather be leaving their homes to go to work every day, but just cannot.

So – if you can – please donate any amount to the account mentioned below. Let us recognize the incredible resilience and solidarity of those in our society who do not enjoy the privileges that many of us enjoy.

Cris Conforto
Director of Advancement