“Get up, walk and start again!”

According to the Municipal Social Assistance Secretariat, 7,272 homeless people in Rio de Janeiro were counted between October 26 and October 29, 2020, during a census of the homeless population.

Discover the services offered

Scheduled access to a shower, haircut, change of clothes, legal assistance, psychosocial support, assistance obtaining documents, workshops, lectures, discussion groups, training programmes, CV preparation, job interview guidance, NA (Narcotics Anonymous) groups, and job search assistance.

After putting together their resumes, the volunteers sponsor and search for job openings online using the institution’s contacts to increase their chances. If the person is called, they are brought to the institution and given all the assistance they need to introduce themselves, but if the person prefers to work independently, such as in sales, the institution will provide the initial inventory if certain conditions are met. After guidance on the cost of goods, pricing, profit calculation, how much they have to keep to replenish material, and possible points of sale, the person receives the initial merchandise as a donation.

The services provided don’t stop here; there is also the “Bônus Hora,” a very innovative method of housing support. It’s like a solidarity loan in that the recipient receives the equivalent of a monthly rent. This action begins with the regularisation of documents, and the person must already be working. Candidates are accompanied throughout the process.

The “loan” is repaid over time with bonuses that accumulate. How do you get this reward? looking after yourself. And what safety measures are these?  Attend the workshops and lectures at the institute, seek psychological or legal assistance, and seek treatment at CAPs (Psychosocial Care Centers), among other things. That is, they get the bonus by keeping busy and doing good things for themselves; that’s the counterpart of the initiative.The more occupied a person is, the more rewards they receive for fulfilling yheir obligation to repay the loan. . However, all these actions have to happen spontaneously.

Additionally, they participate in outside activities like weekly lunches at some city restaurants, outings to cultural and recreational venues, helping Baixada Fluminense residents and families in need, and distributing 300 meals on average every weekend.During all actions, internal or external, a meal is offered to participants, as the institute considers basic food to be paramount.

Numbers

A total of 227 food handouts, 509 resumes, five job interviews, and 72 social services were delivered in December 2021. Currently, four tonnes of food are donated each month, benefiting an average of 7,000 people.

The board of the institute is led by Ana Paula Rios and includes three advisors and four women. Nine lawyers, seven psychologists, three social workers, and other volunteers work at the institute. The age range assisted is from 18 years old to families with children.

Partners

“We work in a network with many different projects and institutions, and this collaboration is our biggest challenge because we can’t do anything on our own.” The biggest challenge today is to always work in a network, integrating so that we can change these people’s lives. “We need more partners; develop new projects to reach a larger audience.”

Ana Paula is aware that social projects cannot meet the demand on their own, but if each one contributes a little bit going forward, perhaps Brazil will become less unequal. Everyone’s assistance is crucial.

How to help

Being a volunteer means donating various items, financing projects, publicising the work, holding raffles, and taking other actions.

If you want to donate anything, you have to bring it to the headquarters because the institute doesn’t have the means to collect it.

Follow the institute on social media

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To become a volunteer, click here

To donate click here

To donate food handouts here

Or contact us via email:  contato@institutolar.org.br