O fight against hunger in Brazil is one of the deliveries that are on the iFood route, a genuinely Brazilian company and concerned about the country's direction. To act on this front, the company has the NGO partnership which is a reference on the topic: Citizenship Action.
Founded by sociologist Herbert de Souza, known as Betinho, three decades ago, the organization has impacted more than 30 million people since then, considering only its activities of distributing food and basic baskets throughout Brazil.
“But we are much more than that”, emphasizes Rodrigo Kiko Afonso, executive director of Ação da Cidadania. “We have a much broader scope of operations.”
An example of this breadth is the preparation of community leaders to deal with the problem of food insecurity.
“We are now offering a free training and training course for more than a thousand community leaders from all over Brazil in terms of citizenship and food security”, says Rodrigo. “Organizations and people belonging to government bodies are involved in this project.”
Keeping an eye on public policies
Another important focus of the NGO is advocacy. “We count on a consultancy that helps us in the process of monitoring public policies that are being processed in Congress, the Senate and the Federal Government itself, to fight against or favor laws that are being proposed on topics that interest us”, contextualizes the director -executive.
“Most of the public policies that exist today towards food security were created and inspired by Citizenship Action, as well as the Food Security Councils spread across the country”, he highlights.
“Bolsa Família itself derives from Betinho’s fight for income transfer, and many organizations also emerged from people’s engagement in the combat to hunger,” he says.
The NGO's battles go beyond the issue of food security. Its agenda also includes themes such as indigenous rights, women's rights, the black community and the public LGBTQUIAP+, for example. “We work on all these fronts in some way, whether in communication, bringing the issue to society, or in advocacy for public policies”, says Rodrigo.
A striking aspect of the positive social impact exerted by Citizenship Action is its campaigns in emergency situations, such as natural disasters.
On these occasions, the NGO is present not only by donating food, but also essential items and medicines.
iFood raised donations for the organization on some of these occasions, such as the heavy rains that hit Bahia in December 2021 and the Sao Paulo coast in February 2023.
The organization's menu of action areas also includes a community garden program, in addition to a structure of equipment aimed at food security, such as solidarity kitchens and food banks.
“We are opening a gastronomy school in Rio de Janeiro to train and train people in this area, applying techniques for fully utilizing food and using PANCs”, adds Rodrigo.
Impact accounting
Faced with such a vast spectrum of initiatives, it is even difficult to come up with numbers that measure all the positive impact generated by Citizenship Action in its 30 years of existence.
Estimates are that the NGO has already served more than 30 million Brazilians in its three decades of existence. “In the last seven or eight years alone, more than 15 million people have benefited”, says the executive director. “And these data only refer to food distribution. If we consider the approvals of public policies that had our support, for example, there are tens of thousands more people indirectly impacted.”
One point that Rodrigo makes a point of highlighting in relation to the fight against hunger in Brazil is the vulnerability of people who are below the poverty line.
“This layer, which today includes between 33 and 34 million people, is completely abandoned”, he states.
“They don't access the training and training programs that companies offer because they don't even have the capacity to attend such a course, as they don't even have money to eat. They are often illiterate people, without any type of information and who live in landfills, on the streets, in an absolutely degrading situation. They really need more assistance support, so that they don’t have to worry about their survival.”
Christmas without Hunger
This audience is a priority for Citizenship Action in its broader campaigns, such as Brazil without Hunger, which this year prioritize children, and that of Christmas without Hunger, held since 1994 so that people in socially vulnerable situations can have a more dignified Christmas.
iFood has participated in Christmas without Hunger since 2017, when, by the way, the company's partnership with the NGO began, precisely for this campaign. “At Christmas that year, each order generated a plate of food, and the result was very significant: almost 1 million reais in donations”, recalls Rodrigo.
“From there, we deepened the relationship with iFood so that it could build a robust donation platform, recurring, giving its client the possibility of having a social impact”, he says.
“The iFood platform then became one of the main ones in the private sector in Brazil in terms of attracting donations, showing a trend for the market”, he reinforces.
“iFood is a pioneer in changing the checkout to insert a donation model and inspires several other companies in this regard. It is a force that needs to be recognized. Your support helped us a lot in a series of actions”, he concludes.
