The current, atypical and unprecedented situation that we now live in transversally and even democratically, has its reverse side in the call it addresses everyone for more active and solidary participation, to that extent more committed to society, requiring us to pay greater attention to those that are isolated and excluded and, as such, in situations of increased vulnerability.
 
Volunteering, overflowing with family and even neighbourhood relationships, is more than ever the mechanism of choice for social solidarity, taking in a deeper dimension of citizenship.
 
CASES is responsible for promoting the measures and providing the tools and mechanisms required to promote Volunteering. Three tools were created and made available to facilitate this practice:
 
- CASES/Volunteering/covid-19 website
On this website you can find information on the different voluntary and solidarity initiatives, of a civil, public and private nature, ongoing from North to South of the country, allowing anyone who wants to help identify the initiatives that best suit their needs, profile and availability, and allowing those that need help identify the initiatives that best suit their needs.
 
- Portugal Volunteer Platform
A Platform that matches those that want to volunteer and the promoting organisations. Here you can find information on the legal framework and existing insurance products.
 
- Portal #CuidaDeTodos
This portal was created and launched with the specific aim of identifying volunteers available to support homes and institutions that assist the elderly. Knowing that our elderly are a doubly fragile population, due to illness and isolation, this identification aims to support, through voluntary work, the workers of these social responses, so that those who have already taken care of us are not left without support.
 
Together the two fundraising and volunteering platforms gather more than 3,500 people who wanted to say present and made themselves available to respond to needs in the context of the pandemic.
 
“Yes, I want to help”, “I am available”, “completely available to help in whatever is possible and necessary”, “you can count on me” were some of the replies we received to the challenges launched for support. A quarter of these volunteers answered “yes” to support for covid-19 patients.
 
In the face of extraordinary people like these, it is up to us to do our best so that this help reaches those in need. To this end, we are responding, on a daily basis, to the needs that we identified, whether in organisations with feature for the elderly or by the different entities operating on the ground. In addition, we provide a line of financial support for the insurance that, according to volunteering legislation in Portugal, must be provided by the entities that frame the volunteers.
 
We shall remain, as until now, committed to developing and making available the tools required to promote the practice of Volunteering and available to help respond to the most pressing needs.




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