Street vendors who would work in the street carnival in the city of Rio de Janeiro will receive an allowance of R$ 500, to be paid in a single installment on February 18th.
The announcement was made today (4) by the city hall and aims to supplement the income of these informal workers, after the cancellation of the festivities for the second year in a row, due to the covid-19 pandemic.
According to the mayor, Eduardo Paes, more than 9,000 street vendors in the city will benefit.
“The street carnival always starts well before. There is an entire production chain that depends on Carnival. What we sought was to build alternatives for this production chain. There is a very large number of people who will stop working during this period and who, as a result, will no longer have an extra income. This program, prepared by the secretariats of Economic Development and Finance, seeks to provide assistance from the City Hall to these people”.
The street vendors registered for the 2020 Carnival will be able to access the aid, which, according to Riotur, totals 9,262 people. According to the city hall, interested parties must access the site www.carioca.rio from Wednesday (9) and inform the CPF, to find out if they are entitled to the benefit. Anyone who is eligible must register by February 17.
The Secretaries of Economic Development, Innovation and Simplification, Chicão Bulhões, highlighted that the Auxílio Ambulante Carnaval de Rua program will help to reduce the economic impacts of the pandemic in the city.
“The carnival in Rio, in addition to its immense cultural and historical value, is also a vector for the city’s economic development, moving the economy and generating work and income for thousands of people. With the cancellation of the street blocks this year, thousands of workers will no longer have the income of that period”.
The city hall reported that in the 2020 carnival, the last one held in the city, more than R$ 4 billion were moved, with the presence of two million tourists. The street vendors work in more than 600 parades, from about 500 authorized blocks.
Last year, the Auxílio Carioca program allocated around R$93 million to 670,000 people, including families in a state of social vulnerability, beneficiaries of the Carioca Family Card Program, street vendors, street vendors’ assistants and families who receive the Merenda Card. The Secretary of Finance, Pedro Paulo, explains that Auxílio Ambulante will use the same platform.
“The process to help street vendors at this year’s carnival is basically the same as what we did with Auxílio Carioca when we made a platform available for them to register and use a digital card so they could make the withdrawal. And that worked. Basically, we’re going to use the same system now. It’s simple and fast.”
