Author: André Caravela Machado

Os velhos são sábios

Posted André Caravela MachadoPosted in opinião, time to think about

Esta pandemia veio provar que a forma de como o sistema lida com os idosos está desenquadrado da realidade e precisa urgentemente de soluções. Em todo o mundo.

Caso a humanidade não ganhe juízo na sua relação com o ambiente e os recursos naturais, as pandemias tornar-se-ão mais frequentes e, por essa razão, tendo em conta a forma de como se lida com os mais velhos, só nos faz temer pelo pior. No caso de Portugal, dois em cada cinco mortos residem em lares, representando 40% dos óbitos por Covid-19 só nesta resposta social.

Em todo o mundo, tem vindo a crescer um fenómeno que é o da discriminação em função da idade mais avançada, levando a desconsiderar os mais velhos, tratando-os como um peso morto da sociedade, em especial depois de abandonarem a vida ativa. Porém, em sociedades como o Norte da Europa, os mais velhos são considerados autênticos poços de sabedoria, fazendo recordar as cidades da antiguidade, onde estas eram dirigidas por um coletivo de anciãos capazes de guiar a comunidade.

Investigadores de todo o mundo afirmam que os mais velhos discriminados vivem, em média, menos sete a oito anos.

O abandono social dos mais velhos tornou-se ainda mais evidente. No caso dos lares, nem todos dispõem de médico, enfermeira, massagista, nutricionista ou de uma técnica que dinamize as muitas horas que os utentes ali passam. As aldeias, cada vez mais desertas, estão sós e à mercê de si mesmas e, se para cada um de nós a solidão é um problema, para os mais velhos é uma verdadeira doença.

A segurança social não tem flexibilidade e revela pouca imaginação para definir novas respostas sociais. É tal a carga burocrática que impossibilita o desenvolvimento de alternativas, encontrando as mesmas soluções para os mesmos problemas. Acontece, muitas vezes, a Segurança Social rejeitar apoio a projetos que lhe são apresentados, apenas porque não se enquadram nas valências já existentes mas, pasme-se, de seguida, que técnicas de serviço social contactam essas mesmas instituições a pedirem ajuda para encontrarem soluções por não terem respostas dentro do sistema.

E é este o Estado em que aqui chegamos.

Todos são válidos!

Again!? The reality of another lockdown in Portugal

Posted André Caravela MachadoLeave a commentPosted in opinião, time to think about

2021 is being sort of 2020 but squared. The numbers for cases of COVID-19 are alarming and, throughout the country, hospitals have serious difficulties in responding to the thousands of cases that are admitted daily to the emergency services.

We are beginning to lack the strength and perseverance to carry on this fateful struggle that haunts the whole world. The recent decisions made by our authorities have done little to crush the epidemiological curve in Portugal, preventing the emergence of new positive cases.

There is no point in discrediting science, pointing the blame at certain decision-making subjects or making value judgments that, if we were to decide, the results would be much better.

There is no point in continuing to launch the rhetoric that only happens to others and that we, the healthy ones can never be affected by such a thing. It is not worth saying that it is only a regular flu, that it is all a fraud that they are promoting all over the world, or that it is a massive attempt to control people through technological nanoparticles that are placed in the body via vaccination. There is no point in launching the debate that this is an excuse to exhaust all services and health sectors, prioritizing this pandemic, discrediting everything else that also deserves attention and dedication. Right now, it is not worth wanting to be smarter than the rest of humanity, simply because we are tired of hearing the same subject every day and, for almost a year now, we have been deprived of doing the simplest and most basic things that we love so much.

It is important to remember that virtually all sectors were affected.
Especially the economical sector, which has its hands tied in the face of all this. Many companies are failing to survive and, as a result, thousands of people across the country lose their jobs, starting to accumulate difficulties to face their commitments. This is the result of an unprecedented very tough economic and
ocial crisis that is creating damage that is difficult to repair.

Contrary to March 2020, there is a light at the end of the tunnel - the long-awaited vaccine - that we aim to reach as soon as possible. But until that happens, we have to ensure that the protection measures are followed, no matter how much it costs us. And we must do this, not only from a personal point of view, but out of respect for the other.

Let us realize that it is our total responsibility to assume a role of alertness, vigilance and protection for the good of all, as a true sense of mission. It is a general duty and not just some, because this evil does not choose creeds, colors or ideologies.

Thank you, Pingo Doce!

Posted André Caravela MachadoPosted in Sem categoria
Pingo Doce, through it's Social Responsibility Department, partnered with World Needsin support of the HelptoHelp Project, offering us a gift card that allowed us to carry yet another initiative in it's behalf.
 
Today, early in the morning, we purchased hygiene goods, such as tampons, sanitary towels and shampoos that will help nearly 50 institutionalized children and youngsters.
 
We can make the difference together, today and always.
 
It feels good to help!
Thank you, Pingo Doce! ❤️

International Volunteer Mission | Cape Verde

Posted André Caravela MachadoPosted in opinião, press release, time to think about

The collaboration protocol between Cape Verde and Portugal was signed, represented by the Achada Eugénio Lima Community Association and World Needs, in the person of their representatives, namely Ricardina Semedo and Márcia Martins.

In this agreement, which runs between 2020-2023, both organisations collaborate to share experiences, knowledge and learning that will enhance the social development of the communities in which they operate.

It is therefore, for us, within the scope of the We Are Together project, led by Team Leader, Andreia Anjos, and the Senior Strategist for Cape Verde, Airton Gomes, a reason for enormous pride.

Therefore, World Needs is preparing the International Volunteer Mission that will take place in 2021 in Cape Verde. This will bring volunteers from Portugal to that country to provide support to communities in the most varied areas of activity.

This is World Needs!

Know more at: wneeds.org/wearetogether

Google? Yes, it's possible.

Posted André Caravela MachadoPosted in time to think about

World Needs is delighted to share with the World that our organization is now oficially sponsered by Google.

With access to an endless package of services and solutions from the Big Tech company, World Needs is now equipped with endless tecnological resources, capable of making us acheive our objectives, as we need those digital tools to offer Humanity solutions that satisfy its needs.

From email, cloud storage, server services, Google Ads, and many other well known services, here expanded to a business and institutional scale

There's no words that can describe the joy of having Google with us. We could not be more proud! Thank you.

Thank you.

Latin America: the danger and consequences of being (able) to be a Woman!

Posted André Caravela MachadoPosted in time to think about

In the contemporary world, it should not be allowed to be accepted even to think about the possibility of the practice of acts of violence. Whoever they are against. For us, this is a reprehensible behaviour.

Mahatma Ghandi claimed to be against violence “because it seems to do good, but good is only temporary; the harm it does is that it is permanent ».

But, deep down, and to reinforce the idea, Jean Paul Sartre said: "Violence, whatever the way it manifests, is always a defeat".

In 2013, in a study published by the World Health Organization, it was estimated that 35 percent of women worldwide had suffered from violence. In that same study, and through data collected, it was possible to show that women who suffered violence (namely, physical or sexual) were more likely to have an abortion, to contract sexually transmitted diseases and higher rates of depression, compared to women who stated that they did not suffer any type of violence (1).

It was estimated that 87,000 women were murdered globally in 2017. More than half of the women (50,000, corresponding to 58 percent) were killed by their partners or family members. It is estimated that at least 137 women a day, worldwide, are murdered by their partners or close family members (4).

In addition to the data collected in the previous study, PAN AMERICAN HEALTH ORGANIZATION (PAHO) produced a report on violence against women. They concluded that violence against women is directly related to sexual and reproductive outcomes, and it is still possible to describe that one in four women reported having suffered violence by an intimate partner. These are data collected from the 7 countries that represent the highest rates of femicide worldwide: El Salvador, Guatemala, Nicaragua, Ecuador, Peru, Colombia and Bolivia (2).

Information from 15 Latin American states shows that at least 3,287 women were victims of femicide in 2018, with El Salvador appearing in the ranking with the highest rate - 6.8 women in every 100,000 women (3).

It is in Latin America that the cases of violence against women that give rise to Feminicide are revealed with greater accuracy. Between 2015 and 2018, in Mexico, the number of murders of women for gender reasons increased from 411 to 898. In Brazil, there was a 12 percent increase between 2017 and 2018: a total of 1,206 women murdered (4).

If these numbers haunt and frighten the reality of being a woman in Latin America, at the same time they should embarrass any citizen of the world, as it is not acceptable, at any time, to question human life for gender reasons.

We are facing structural discrimination against women, which often passes by the side of political decision-makers. Legislative power has not given attention to harassments, namely, sexual, at work, in educational environments, in public transport, in public places, among others, which jeopardise the dignity of thousands of women around the world on a daily basis. 

This is discrimination that restricts, deprives and does not democratise the freedom to be a woman. Discrimination that is often institutionalised when there is a particular impact, for example, on young women, when they are faced with abortion situations and are persecuted, denounced and marginalised in civil society.

This is the case of the young Belén, a 27-year-old Argentine woman. In 2014, Belén was admitted to the Tucumán hospital with a vaginal haemorrhage. The emergency doctor declared in his diagnosis a "spontaneous abortion". However, the terror went further: Belén was accused of having got rid of her unborn child in one of the hospital's bathrooms. The police arrested Belén. She was sentenced to 8 years in prison for aggravated homicide, in a process full of irregularities. Given the scope of the situation, with the support of the United Nations and Amnesty International, Belén served two years in prison and was freed. Two years in prison for a crime she did not commit simply because she was a woman. Just so that the judiciary could use an example for society, but it turned out to be an example for the judiciary itself to not condemn innocent young women.

This cannot be today's World!
The World that we know and where we live, will only be more World, when the coexistence in Humanity is revealed, clearly, through a strong commitment in the execution of freedom, self-determination and fulfilment of people's rights and duties.

Until we look at the world as we are “all the same, but different”, we will never be able to understand that the difference that separates us is the equality that brings us together.

This, in fact, is not the contemporary world. It is not the current world that allows us to be ourselves and to be more.

World Needs more Equality.
World Needs more Rights.

[1] Organização Mundial da Saúde, Departamento de Saúde Reprodutiva e Pesquisa, Escola de Higiene e Medicina Tropical de Londres, Conselho Sul-Africano de Pesquisa Médica (2013). Estimativas globais e regionais da violência contra as mulheres: prevalência e efeitos sobre a saúde da violência conjugal e violência sexual não conjugal

[2] Violence Against Women in the Americas: Data and Action (PAHO) (2018), Violence Against Women, https://www.paho.org/hq/index.php?option=com_content&view=category&layout=blog&id=1505&Itemid=2459&lang=en, Acesso a 06 de agosto de 2020, às 02:17

[3] https://oig.cepal.org/es/indicadores/feminicidio, Acesso a 06 de agosto de 2020, às 02:05

[4] Escritório das Nações Unidas sobre Drogas e Crime (UNODC) (2019). Global Study on Homicide 2019, p. 10
[5] https://elpais.com/internacional/2017/03/27/argentina/1490648400_185209.html, Acesso a 06 de agosto de 2020, às 02:48

A Cape Verde connection

Posted André Caravela MachadoPosted in opinião, projetos, time to think about

One of World Needs' main areas of intervention is volunteering.

As we know, volunteering has become a way of life and a different way of offering ourselves to others, for the benefit of Humanity.

Since World Needs’ foundation, the expansion of the project to Portuguese-speaking countries has always been present, in first place, because they are countries closer to the mother language of the project and, later, to other countries that want to welcome this mission.

As a matter of fact, since the foundation of our organization, one of the main objectives for the first 5 years is to extend the project to as many countries as possible.

That is why, through the World Needs’ project We Are Together with a protocol celebrated with Associação Eugénio Lima of Cape Verde, Portugal and Cape Verde are united in a close partnership of collaboration in projects between the two countries, for the sharing of knowledge, structural support which is reflected in humanitarian and volunteer missions in Cape Verde, under the coordination of the communities resident there and the legal procedures imposed by that country.

This partnership aims to promote a close relationship between the two countries, through this protocol, in the development of a timeless mission that puts human dignity and social development (through education, health and culture (scientific, technological and social)) in first place.

World Needs has the doors open to begin its mission in Cape Verde, with the possibility of creating partnerships and lasting relationships with local entities that fulfill our fundamental mission goals and in line with the objectives of the United Nations. 

These are more than enough reasons for World Needs to be proud of what it is creating, for and in favor of Humanity, always as an objective and never as a mere means.

World Needs' mission is to cooperate in order that social development can become a factor of human recognition, by promoting education, culture, science and solidarity from an intemporal and intercultural perspective.

More information about the project here.

World Needs YOU.

bg3

From people. To people.

Posted André Caravela MachadoPosted in opinião, time to think about

World Needs came at a time of shock for everyone - in the middle of the COVID-19 outbreak. But it was at this time that the opportunity to think of a project, from Portugal, bringing together an infinite variety of projects in the most varied areas, became possible.

It was, basically, the combined knowledge acquired over the years by its founders that went from paper to practice. And how good it is to make a dream come true!

A non-governmental organization for development is, in itself, a very big challenge: first of all, because it must respect, precisely, Humanity in its fundamental principles; in second place, because we are developing projects that are made by people for people and, for that reason, detail and demand are details with a bigger dimension; and, last but not least, putting love and joy in everything we do without giving up and lowering our arms, becomes the challenge of all challenges.

That is why we can make a difference together. United. In the effort. In knowledge. And sharing that knowledge, for the benefit of the other, of humanity in general. Much like Rui Madeira e Silva spoke of the "the foundations of a New World are now laid".

From Portugal, marked with a cross on the globe, that is the mark of World Needs, movements come out around the planet that end in a heart, representing love. This love, that we want to spread on earth and everywhere.

For this reason, World Needs is born with motivated, capable and dedicated members that want, in a certain way, to help transform our world. For the better. From people to people.

We are World Needs.

Adaptation in this time of pandemic.

Posted André Caravela MachadoPosted in opinião, time to think about

We began observing our daily lives differently, mainly because we were forced to share it. Some earlier, others later. Ultimately, the awareness that COVID-19 changed our lifestyle, turned out to be undisputed by all. Perhaps, and without any reluctance, in some cases, the change was for the better.

In a short matter of time, we realized that the only way to act on the behalf of everyone was to submit ourselves to confinement inside our houses and adopt means of social distance. We became limited to the strictly necessary, forcing everyone (or most of them) to stop and stare. And, perhaps, the understanding of how crucial affections can be, and what the true value of a simple hug is, came to life. Also, living in a rush often is what separates us from what matters most in life.

Common interactions, that used to be effortlessly available, are no longer. It became digital. It is no longer tangible. We had to learn how to adapt to these new circumstances and the hours between mornings and evenings, that once were so filled, turned to repeated echoes. We were concerned and touched. Since we are referring to our people, and once the right to life must be guaranteed to every single one of them, in all circumstances, this becomes important. And no money can pay the life of a human being.

Among information from certified identities, some signs of hope from designated heroes start appearing. They dedicate their time to protect and even save people, in a strong-minded way, no matter what the battlefield is.

These heroes present themselves as part of the food and transport sector, as firefighters, INEM, police and security forces, as auxiliaries and technicians from IPSS, as health professionals, and so many others. For those who make an effort in their daily bases, so that nothing goes missing within any family, and keeping in mind that everything must be done to overcome the many difficulties of those in need, Here everyone is a fit, with no exception.

Thank you.