Through the Mais Ajuda program, Lidl Portugal, with the help of its customers, donated 400 thousand euros to four institutions, which are already working on the ground to combat housing poverty in our country.
Every day, housing poverty is in the news and always for the worst reasons. There are many difficulties in finding decent housing, especially in urban areas, and associated with this, we inevitably encounter serious social and health problems, exacerbated, for example, by insufficient thermal insulation and persistent humidity. According to the National Statistics Institute, in the last ten years, the housing sector has seen prices soar by almost 75% and, in 2022, 2.1 million Portuguese people were even at risk of poverty or social exclusion.
It was precisely the awareness that there was a lot to be done in the housing area that led Lidl Portugal employees to choose this topic as the focus of attention for the fourth edition of the Mais Ajuda program. Originally launched in 2019, with the aim of creating an innovative charitable Christmas campaign, this initiative is dedicated to social themes every year. This year, the solidarity of Lidl Portugal customers joined in who chose to round up their purchases during the month of December, contributing almost 50 thousand euros, an amount that was doubled by Lidl Portugal, adding to the 300 thousand euros already highlighted by the retailer to support the housing cause.
In total, over the four editions, the supermarket chain has already contributed 1,244,000 euros to support social innovation projects. According to Ana Burmester, Head of CSR at Lidl Portugal, “Mais Ajuda has, in fact, a great impact on the population, different from traditional responses and demonstrates that training and teamwork must be part of the way to help those most it needs”.
Homes for people in vulnerable situations
In addition to encouraging customer solidarity, the Mais Ajuda program also involves challenging startups, private social solidarity institutions (IPSS) and other social entrepreneurship entities to develop innovative projects with impact, capable of finding new answers to social problems.
Among the four institutions that won the award this year, we find Crescer. Created in 2001, its main mission is to promote inclusion in the community of people in vulnerable situations. For this reason, the one hundred thousand euros in prize received under the program will be invested in the pilot project “É Uma Habitação”, an “innovative response, which involves the rehabilitation of vacant buildings and the construction of new buildings on unused land” , explains Américo Nave, Executive Director of Crescer. In his words, “according to the proposed model, part of the housing will be accessible on the open market, while the remainder will be allocated to affordable housing for tenants from Housing First projects”. The choice of this target audience was due, says Américo Nave, to “the observation that some tenants of Housing First projects are well organized and integrated into the community and the job market, remaining in the project not out of necessity, but due to the inability to bear the rental costs currently charged”.
Just a Change also received a check for one hundred thousand euros from Lidl Portugal, and there are two objectives that the non-profit association intends to achieve with the value of the prize. From the outset, part of the amount will be allocated to consolidating the expansion of the organization, which last year opened a center in Guimarães, where in the first year of activities it plans to “rehabilitate 15 houses of around 23 beneficiaries”, reveal Inês Gonçalves, from the area of Impacto, Gonçalo Ferro, coordinator of the Guimarães Hub, and Rita Lucena, from the Funds, Financing and Awards area. On the other hand, they intend to carry out the “consolidation of Impact”, which will involve “establishing an IPSS network that helps to better monitor each beneficiary, meeting their specific needs”. The objective is to “end this first year with 25 partnerships confirmed for the network”, they specify, highlighting that “initiatives like these [do Lidl Portugal] are fundamental for social institutions”, as they “bring the attention of civil society to the cause in question, making organizations known with different solutions and approaches to the problem”.
Architecture for everyone
Based in Montemor-o-Novo, Cooperativa Integral Minga was founded in 2015 and, since then, “has been paving the way for the development of a collectively owned cooperative housing project”, called CHEE (Cooperativa de Habitação Económica e Ecological). “In order to combat speculation, this project promotes low-cost housing, materialized in vernacular and/or innovative construction techniques with low environmental impact, with the possibility of promoting self-construction, influencing the local market by offering quality housing at fair prices ”, explains Joana Trindade, Co-coordinator in the Housing and Construction Section. More recently, the cooperative also founded AOATAC (Technical Support and Construction Aid Organization Agency), which is “a kind of non-welfare ‘family architect’, which aims to facilitate access to architecture and the empowered search for alternatives for a adequate housing.” Specifically, “the financial support from Lidl Portugal will be applied to the professionalization of functions that have been developed voluntarily in the Housing and Construction Section, since its foundation”, allowing not only “to restructure both projects”, but also “Allow these to reach more inhabitants of Montemor-o-Novo”, he explains.
Also in the scope of architecture, the other winning entity is Rés do Chão (R/C), which proposes to “continue to develop architectural projects with citizen participation to qualify public spaces in the context of public housing neighborhoods”. Mariana Paisana, project manager and architect, estimates that “more than 9 thousand direct beneficiaries could be impacted in various locations, such as Lisbon, Cascais and Braga, through the development of participatory processes and architectural projects, which qualify public spaces and community spaces that provide continuity to municipal housing spaces”. Specifically, R/C proposes to “apply the financial support from the Mais Ajuda program to strengthen the team and make its processes more efficient, structure more effective communication, and create a network of partners to increase its impact and raise awareness about the importance of participatory processes in city design”.
Empower winning organizations
According to Ana Burmester, Lidl Portugal received “very complete applications, of excellent quality and with a true purpose in their missions”, which is why “the choice was not easy”. This “required a rigorous evaluation and selection process of all applications”, which had the support of Impact Hub Lisbon, which develops projects with impact entities to promote a more sustainable and inclusive future, as well as the clients who helped to Vote for the shortlist of finalists using the Lidl Plus app.
According to Francesco Rocca, Executive Director of Impact Hub Lisbon, this organization collaborated with Lidl Portugal in order to, in partnership, “design and implement a new edition of the program, with the aim of supporting the winning organizations to achieve their strategic objectives and to scale its impact.”
The kick-off for this work by Impact Hub Lisbon with the four winning organizations, which will run until December 2024, took place on the 2nd and 3rd of March, during a bootcamp, in which the next steps for each entity were defined. , so that the objectives set are achieved. “During two days of immersion in intense learning, participating organizations received training sessions that covered crucial topics to expand their impact”, highlights the person in charge, adding that “consultants specializing in the areas of marketing, communication, networking, sales and financing provided valuable guidance to participants.” Furthermore, “the winning entities were also able to exchange knowledge, which is essential for creating a cohesive learning and sharing environment”, he highlights.
This sponsored content was produced in collaboration with Lidl.
