Oxfam Intermón predicts that economic crisis derived from the coronavius pandemic will add a million more poor people in Spain. Almost 80% of these are in a situation of extreme poverty, survive with less than 480 euros per month. These are some of the data from Oxfam’s international report, entitled ‘The virus of inequality’.
Jerez does not escape from this scenario, indeed, the city is poorer and the poor are even more vulnerable. Since the beginning of the health crisis, many groups have come together to fill the refrigerators of hundreds of homes, a need that has not ceased to exist and that is becoming something chronic.
David Flores He is a night carrier and when the lockdown was declared in March he continued touring the country in his truck. “The problems of the lack of masks and hydrogel began and, searching on Facebook, I came across the group ‘Costaleros for our elders’. I went one day and I was amazed at everything they did for others, they gave me many masks and hydrogels and I was able to distribute throughout Spain. And from there I started knocking on many doors, from cooperatives, in case they could donate something, another association also asked me for help and my father joined the cause, “declares Flores.
Jerez is part of the Band of Santa MartaHe spoke with his colleagues and since then all the help began to be managed under the umbrella of this group. The band’s headquarters became the operational center of what is now the association ‘United for music’, a group in which members of the San Juan Musical Group. Currently the entity serves about 70 families to whom they distribute food and there are some 200 people as volunteers and collaborators. “Every week we go to supermarkets to carry out food drives and the cooperatives donate fruits and vegetables to us. Now we are also with clothes and footwear ”, emphasizes Flores.
“Life has changed me a lot. The people who form ‘United for Music’ feel … it is difficult to explain. We have users who are very old and cannot move from their homes And when we go, everything is very strong, a lot of feeling. It is very great to see how everyone turns to others ”, remarks the president of the group.
The association has collaborated in this time in the Avanti project, in favor of the homeless, with the sisters of Santa Rita, and also with the Luis Vives school, “where for two months we were doing the food to distribute to students in the middle of a pandemic”. “Our goal is to continue growing to help more people, so I call for solidarity because from ‘United for Music’ everything is done from the heart,” Flores underlines.
– .
