Panel SA: Donation arrives in Bahia, but logistics and reconstruction worry, volunteers say

The União BR volunteer movement reports difficulties in the efforts to help victims of the rains in Bahia. The big challenge now is logistics, according to businesswoman Ana Maria Diniz, one of the donors.

Gabriella Marques, one of the founders of the movement that since 2020 has been involved in pandemic donations and continued to distribute food baskets against hunger, says that the bottleneck is worrying, because the damage is spreading across many small municipalities.

“When a catastrophe happens, as it was with the oxygen crisis in Manaus, everyone mobilizes to donate. There was a lot of mattress donation, which is necessary because people are homeless, but it happened when there was more mattress than needed. in a single city. So, we have to take care of the congruence of information, so that there is no overlapping of donations”, says Marques.

She says that sending food baskets is necessary, but most victims have nowhere to cook because they have lost their homes. According to Marques, what has helped in this regard are the efforts to produce meals in lunchboxes, such as the Gastromotiva organization.

“We got in touch so that these movements could create solidarity kitchens in these regions. We are already managing to distribute ready-to-eat meals to homeless people,” he says.

For now, the shipment of essential products such as water and mattresses has been large, but there is fear that the work will run out of steam after the short deadline.

“This case of rains in Bahia will have a long tail of reconstruction in these cities. We are already seeing municipalities where it stopped raining, and they are starting to map the size of the disaster. We will have to mobilize efforts with the private environment, civil society and interaction with public authorities for the reconstruction of these cities. There are destroyed schools, hospitals,” he says.

with Ana Paula White