I met a new friend here in Lisbon who volunteers every week to help prepare and distribute free food to people who need it. She works at
CASA, which stands for
Centro de Apoio ao Sem Abrigo. The basic meaning of that is: Center of Help for People Without Houses...in the US, we usually say "homeless people". At
CASA, different volunteers come every day, seven days a week, cook, package, and drive to distribute food directly to people who come to specific locations to pick it up. Instead of people going to a church or building to eat, the volunteers at
CASA bring the food to people on the streets. It was really interesting to see how this program works. I got to see a different side of Lisbon and it felt good to do something useful for people who really need it.
Every night in addition to the people who volunteer to prepare food, 5 or 6 volunteers show up with cars and drive around to distribute food. Usually three people go together in one car for each location. They deliver to about 7 or 8 different neighborhoods in Lisbon.
Here are some photos:
One really interesting thing about this experience was getting to meet and work with the volunteers. Some are Portuguese, but several were from other countries ( Poland, Czech Republic, Germany) and spoke Portuguese fluently. They had all come to live in Portugal to study or work and liked it so much they stayed. I listened to everyone speak Portuguese and couldn't understand a lot, but it was good for me to be in an environment where everyone, even second language learners, was using the target language. They could also speak English with me and told me about their experiences learning Portuguese and how hard it was in the beginning. It was good to see foreigners who have really assimilated the language successfully and are accepted/welcomed into the culture here.
It was kind of a long night. We arrived at around 6:00 and left to deliver food around 9:30 pm. I didn't get home until after 11:00 that night.
Here is an example of one of the shelters some people live in:
One thing that was pretty shocking for me was seeing where some people lived. At the first few stops, we pulled into a parking lot and people would come up to the car and we would hand each person an entree, a fruit salad, bread, cake and offer them a drink. If people wanted several meals, that was fine too. But, there were some locations where our driver walked over to some very makeshift shelters (see the photo above with the wooden boxes) and handed meals to people who were living inside boxes, or shelters made of cardboard or plastic tarps...some people were lying on the ground under blankets or sleeping bags. I've never been up that close to that kind of poverty. It's amazing that CASA volunteers do that 7 nights a week.
At our last stop, we parked near the Ribeira market and suddenly about 30 people lined up. We had to work fast to serve everyone. I was in charge of pouring drinks and a lot of people needed to get refills for their drink two or three or four times. I could really see that they were in need of hydration. Some of the people were elderly people who are having a hard time living on their pension. They might have a place to live but not enough money to buy all the food they need.
My job that night was also to write down the name of each stop we went to in our particular neighborhood (Cais de Sodre) and what time we stopped there and how many meals we gave away. It was a very very interesting experience and I'm really grateful that my friend allowed me to come and work with her. I learned a lot !
