It is a matter of trial and error in the too small soup kitchen in the back building of the Nossa Senhora de Fátima church, in the north of Lisbon. There are green crates everywhere, bags of potatoes and onions are lying on the floor. In the cramped space, volunteers assemble the food parcels under the direction of Ludovina Moreira, a 69-year-old retired woman. They fill the crates with fruit, vegetables, dairy and the meal of the day: rice with chicken.
“I want to make my time useful and help people. That is my moral duty to society,” says Moreira. Three to four days a week she is in the kitchen of Refood, an organization that collects food for Portuguese who cannot make ends meet. “The offer is different every day, so that sometimes requires a bit of creativity,” says Moreira, while she smoothly lifts one of the heavy crates and walks outside despite her slender build. There the first people are ready to receive the food.
Photo Mariline Alves
In Portugal, at least a quarter of the inhabitants have to live on the minimum wage, an amount of around seven hundred euros per month. For some it is even lower. It made the discussion around the minimum wage an important theme for the elections. Portuguese will go to the polls early this Sunday after parliament blocked the left-wing government’s budget in October, ending the government of Socialist Prime Minister António Costa. One of the sore points on which the parties could not agree: the minimum wage.
In the soup kitchen queue, nobody cares about politics: the next meal is more important than the next election
The dilapidated Nossa Senhora de Fátima stands in the middle of a residential area and attracts attention with a yellow iron door. The sun disappears just behind the church building as the distribution begins. Ludovina Moreira hands a crate to a 38-year-old man with curly black hair, wearing a black leather jacket and dark blue jeans. He does not want to give his name and prefers to remain unrecognizable behind his mouth cap, while he embarrasses the food in his backpack. “Do you have milk and bananas too?” he whispers, looking at his white scuffed sneakers.
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Photo Mariline Alves
22-year-old volunteer Laura Roque goes inside to look for bananas and milk. The man looks around hesitantly and then tells how he became dependent on Refood. “I do daytime work and I am not assured of a fixed monthly income. But I still have to eat, so I regularly come here for takeout.” Roque comes back. No milk today, but bananas. Once he has accepted it, he quickly runs away.
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corona malaise
Miguel Costa Matos, economic adviser to Prime Minister Costa, contributed to the budget that led to the fall of the government. “We have been able to deliver on many promises during our reign,” he argues over the phone. For example, in 2019 the government promised to increase the minimum income from 655 to 705 euros in 2021 “and we succeeded”. Costa Matos would like to expand the plans, “but of course the opposition felt that we were not doing enough and demanded an increase to 850 euros”. According to the government adviser, it was impossible to raise the minimum salary so sharply so quickly. “That is a huge blow for entrepreneurs.”
The pandemic has not made it any easier for the ruling party. The country was in a strict lockdown from March 2020 until the summer months of that year and tourism – a major source of income – collapsed. After that, the government took measures that affected, among other things, the catering industry and tourism.
The socialists are still in the lead in the latest polls, although the centre-right PSD has been steadily catching up in recent weeks. Costa’s party is targeting young voters in its campaign with promises of lower taxes, free childcare and a subsidy for buying a house. Last week, Prime Minister Costa even promised in a radio interview that the national minimum wage will be around 900 euros within four years.
Exodus of young people
The 29-year-old restaurant manager Sandro (he doesn’t want to give his last name) waves those promises away. He graduated ten years ago as a technical designer, but instead of working in his field, today, as every evening, he smoothes the white tablecloths in the restaurant Lisboa Carmo, in the heart of the city center. “The tourism sector was the only way for me to earn money,” he says.
Shortly after graduating, this catering job was intended to be temporary, until he found work in technology. “I don’t want to complain, because in the end I earn money and I can pay my fixed costs. Not everyone can say the same.” He pulls the mask off his face and smiles gratefully. “With my salary I can afford a small one-room apartment outside Lisbon. The rent is about 500 euros and that is a lot, especially if you earn the minimum. Renting a house closer to my work, here in the city, is impossible. Never mind that I could start a family,” he says with a shrug, silverware in his hands.
Since the economic crisis in 2008, thousands of Portuguese have left the country every year to look for better jobs elsewhere. It is mainly young people from the interior who are looking for their future elsewhere. “That’s terrible. Especially because we are dealing with an aging population,” says advisor Costa Matos. “Although the economy is now much better, it is still not possible to bring the young people back or keep them here, while we desperately need them. We don’t want to become the Bangladesh of Europe,” he concludes, referring to the low wages in his country. The economist even fears that certain sectors will be faced with staff shortages if the trend continues.
Low turnout
Portuguese do not have much faith in politics. In the previous election, two years ago, turnout was dramatically low at 48.6 percent. This time, the authorities are doing everything they can to ensure that citizens vote despite the pandemic. For example, infected voters are allowed to go to the polls during special periods and via separate entrances.
Queuing at the yellow door of Nossa Senhora de Fátima, nobody cares about politics – the next meal is more important than the next election. The embarrassment among young mothers, an old couple and a group of migrants is palpable. Some of them nervously grab their phones and disappear into their screens to avoid any eye contact.
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Photo Mariline Alves
Ludovina Moreira continues unperturbed by distributing the green crates. “Tonight and tomorrow they can take it again,” she smiles kindly at a young woman with a green coat and a white wool cap on her head. She nods back to Moreira, thanks her, walks away with the food and disappears behind an apartment building. Moreira crosses her arms in satisfaction. Her task for tonight is done. “But I am only really satisfied when the number of people who need help decreases.”
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