Ormazabal participates with UNICEF in a project to curb the impact of the COVID-19 in Brazil

The actions of this project have been mainly aimed at providing hygiene and protection materials, as well as education regarding the pandemic, amongst the youngest children

Due to the delicate situation of a large part of the Brazilian population, which suffered more than 4,300,000 cases of illness and 132,000 deaths due to COVID-19 during 2020, we have participated in a project led by UNICEF, the United Nations Children’s Fund, to try to alleviate the negative effects that the pandemic has caused among children in the American country, where we have been present for 22 years now.

The focus of the programme was on distributing essential hygiene and cleaning items – as well as masks – in the main outskirts of 11 Brazilian capitals, reaching more than 1,800,000 people; and also providing information materials to combat the misinformation of families at risk of exclusion regarding the disease, as well as advising on how to protect the youngest children from the coronavirus. To this end, UNICEF deployed a media and social media campaign to combat the so-called fake news, reaching 236 million people in Brazil.

The presence of UNICEF programmes in 150 municipalities and 55 urban neighbourhoods has been critical to the programme’s success, which has also focused on the right to education for children in schools that had to be closed due to the pandemic. Through the Deixa que Eu Conto initiative, educational content was disseminated to nearly 3.5 million children in the early years of primary school.

On the other hand, the programme has sought to ensure the continuity of public services, especially in the area of Amazonia, by helping to train more than 3,200 public management professionals in 1,102 municipalities.

This project is part of Ormazabal’s commitment to the environment and our long-term vision in the countries where we operate. The collaboration in this project has been the equivalent of supplying drinking water to 18,921 children for one month; preventing contagious diseases during an emergency situation.