This month, the Paredes de Coura City Council will deliver to families in need ‘vouchers’ to be discounted in traditional commerce, in an investment of 60 thousand euros that aims to boost the local economy and guarantee social support.
In a statement sent today to the newsrooms, the Chamber of Paredes de Coura, in the district of Viana do Castelo, explained that the measure “intends to reach local businesses, through families, giving purchasing power to the most vulnerable families”.
According to the municipality, that support “will be in force during the month of May, and an eventual increase in the amount allocated to the allocation of ‘vouchers’ is not removed, since all social measures have to be rethought according to needs”.
“In reality, we will not give money to families, we will give them purchasing power in local businesses, which will consequently guarantee that this purchasing power circulates and reaches the entire community. The pandemic context has alerted even more to something we have been working on. It is essential to have solidarity with the small economic agents that are close to us and to guarantee the strengthening of subsistence in the village and neighborhood businesses. This is not achieved only with this measure of the municipality, it depends on the change in people’s attitude ”, explained the Mayor, Vítor Paulo Pereira, mentioned in that note.
According to the municipality, “the success of this measure will depend, essentially, on the fact that the community understands that their consumption choices determine whether their neighbor and his family have an income that allows them to subsist as well”.
“We think this is so important for us to survive as a community that, together with the recommendation for respiratory hygiene and the use of a mask, we record audio messages that are circulating in all the parishes, appealing to people to buy in local shops. It is in the hands of courenses and we trust them ”, maintained the socialist mayor.
The municipality also said that “a large-scale distribution operation of about 20 thousand reusable masks (with CITEVE certificate) has started, as well as 10,000 surgical masks and alcohol gel, in an investment that exceeds 50 thousand euros”.
Those Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) “were handed over to the 16 mayors of Parish Council and Parish Unions for later distribution to residents of the entire municipality, in an initiative that required a significant financial and logistical effort by the Chamber of Paredes de Coura”.
“The challenges we face are very demanding and must be faced with hope and a long-term perspective. In the first phase, rigor, civility and confinement were needed. Now, we are going to progressively return to a new normality and we also need to be disciplined and careful. All attitudes of levity can cause all previous efforts to collapse, ”explained Vítor Paulo Pereira.
The socialist mayor stressed that, “in a first phase, the municipality followed closely, with multiple supports, all the institutions in the state, which were and will be in the forefront in the front line in the fight against the covid-19”.
“Now we will be at the side of the community that is preparing for their return to normal as possible, through the provision of protective material. It is essential that we all recognize that success in safeguarding public health depends on continuous vigilance and persistent care that begins with each one of us, ”he maintained.
Portugal accounts for 1,007 deaths associated with covid-19 in 25,351 confirmed cases of infection, according to the daily bulletin of the Directorate-General for Health (DGS) on the pandemic released today.
In relation to the previous day, there are 18 more deaths (+ 1.8%) and 306 more cases of infection (+ 1.2%).
Of the infected people, 892 are hospitalized, of which 154 are in intensive care units, and the number of recovered cases went from 1519 to 1,647.
Portugal will end on Saturday, May 2, the third period of 15 days of state of emergency, which started on March 19, and the Government announced the transition to a disaster situation starting at 00:00 on Sunday.
Due to the long weekend because of the Labor Day holiday, the Government prohibited travel between municipalities from May 1st to 3rd.
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