Fogo/Brava: President of the Red Cross of Cape Verde makes his first visit to the region

The president of the Red Cross of Cape Verde (CVCV) starts today his first visit to the Fogo/Brava region to swear in the leaders of the local councils and deliver the second tranche of funding to the families of Chã das Caldeiras.

The national responsible for the CVCV, Arlindo Soares de Carvalho, begins his visit to the island of Brava where, among other points, he will confer office on the newly elected members of the local council, then proceeds to the island of Fogo where he has scheduled the possession of the local councils of São Filipe and Santa Catarina do Fogo.

The still chairman of the CVCV local council in São Filipe, Mário Barbosa, told Inforpress that, in São Filipe, in addition to swearing in new local officials, Arlindo Soares de Carvalho will deliver a hiace vehicle, which he already finds on the island , to the local structure of the Red Cross.

He said that the delivery of the second tranche of funding to the families of Chã das Caldeiras is also planned, after the local council has streamlined the process with the 40 families contemplated with funding to implement income-generating activities, namely the opening of individual accounts with a banking institution.

The availability of the first tranche, worth 150 contos to each of the families, six thousand contos in total, took place at the beginning of January 2017 and allowed the families covered to start some activity.

The amount to be made available in the second tranche is the same as the first, in the amount of 150 thousand escudos, and the CVCV has scheduled a meeting with the beneficiary families to encourage them to apply the funding correctly.

Each beneficiary family will be assigned a vinti4 card for operations and transferring the amount, instead of using checks, according to Mário Barbosa.

The funding was raised by CVCV, within the scope of the campaign carried out to support those affected by the 2014/2015 volcanic eruption, at national and international level, having raised around PTE 30 thousand, of which PTE 6 thousand have already been made available and another 6 thousand will be delivered during the course of August or early September, in addition to financing other investments.

The local council of São Filipe, as a focal point, carried out a field mission to find out if the families used the money in the creation of income-generating activities so that they could benefit from the second tranche, and found that only two families used the money in the construction of rooms, claiming to also be an income-generating activity.

The selection of beneficiary families was carried out based on screening work by an intersectoral team involving several CVCV partners and which, in November 2014, identified a total of 66 vulnerable families living in Chã das Caldeiras, of which 40 were without of the most basic means of subsistence.

That is why this institution decided to give a different treatment, “in a positive way”.

JR/YY

Inforpress/End