Fortunately, almost every day, news emerges about some major rock or metal artist or band taking action to help combat COVID-19 or improve the situation of those affected by the virus. The vast majority, however, involve international musicians. João Gordo .
In an interview with Wikimetal, the lead singer of Ratos de Porão explains his incredible project of delivering vegan meals to homeless people, called Solidariedade Vegan (Vegan Solidarity ), done with his wife, Vivi Torrico . He also comments on his perspective on the coronavirus pandemic and explains how we can help this movement stay alive.
Wikimetal: First of all, thank you so much for taking the time to talk to us at Wikimetal, and I'd like you to explain what Vegan Solidarity , and how this movement came about .
João Gordo: Oh, we have Central Panelaço , right? And since we opened the store, we've had this social foundation, helping animal NGOs, art exhibitions for charities, right? And this time, man, we had to close the store because of the quarantine, and there were a lot of savory snacks there that were going to spoil, and Vivi took everything and went to deliver it to the people who live near Central Panelaço, in Bixiga, and took it to the homeless people, who were very hungry, these people who are addicted, who smoke crack and stuff, they're not using their stuff, and they get super nervous, man, and hungry too, you know? She [Vivi] came back super moved, cried a lot, and said, 'We have to do something to help these people, man.'
Among the people there, there was a friend of hers, the guy's a cart driver, you know? He's from that "Pimp My Cart" thing , and where he was there were about 100 people, all starving, and I said, 'Let's do something, right?', and then we created a kind of project, gave it a name… I don't know if it was my daughter's idea, and we started doing it, with our own money. And little by little Vivi started raising money from people on the internet, you know, we talked to famous people… famous people I know, who are more involved in this movement of ours, and it's growing, you know, we're now making 150 meals a day, with people's help. We want to start doing charity work, we have to ask for help, right, through Catarse (a crowdfunding platform), and contributions started coming in… but the vast majority are 5 or 10 reais, right? But there are a lot of people, so little by little we manage… we just received 10,000 containers from a guy, you know?
And I'm at home, right? Because I'm in a high-risk group, still screwed because I've been dealing with pneumonia for a while now, and I've been in quarantine since July of last year, right? We had to cancel a series of shows, a series of 30, 40 shows… some in Europe, and so here I am, I can't go out, I'm too weak, I can't even stick my nose outside the house.
WM: But I imagine that even though you've been stuck at home for a long time, this experience must be very important, because what people seem to feel most during quarantine is this feeling of powerlessness in relation to the world, right?
JG: That's a dose of humility for a lot of people, right? Worrying about the person, about the family that has nothing to eat, no money to make ends meet, and people are really starving, society has never gone through anything so crazy, man. All this happening, and the idiot president going against the grain, you know? And a bunch of imbeciles supporting him… saying it's just a little flu. I think if things really get bad here, Brazil deserves a catastrophe like that to learn some humility, these old guys, fascists… the virus doesn't make a choice, it affects anyone, and these people will only understand when a relative, a close friend dies, right?
And you know what that also looks like, man? A big scheme to kill the old people, and kill the poor, you know? A great extermination, they want the old people to die so they don't have to pay into social security and all that, and the poor? The poor are a problem, man, killing a million people from the favela, man? That's what it looks like.
WM: And how can we help Solidariedade Vegan to continue?
JG: Ah, I don't have the data here, but you can get it from social media. We have Catarse , and there are a lot of people helping there, people from all over the world, which is the coolest thing, man. There's PayPal , which is vivi.torrico@uol.com.br, and it's in my account too.
See below for João Gordo's account details to help Solidariedade Vegan :
Itaú Bank
João F. Benedan
101.471.468-01
Branch 3757
Account 04754-7
PLEASE IDENTIFY: *Solidariedade Vegan