The wildlife recovery center RIAS, in Olhão, will be able to take higher flights in terms of environmental education, following the support of 12 euros it received this Thursday, April 20, from the Jumbo Foundation for Youth. This amount will be used to support "more than one hundred initiatives" aimed at children and young people and will provide the center with some material, such as a projector, a new computer and chairs, which will help to improve the center's capacity to educate the youngest ( And not only).
This support, which is, precisely, 11.957 euros, follows an application made by the RIAS to a program of the foundation of the Auchan Group, owner of the Jumbo and Pão de Açucar brands. The international jury liked the «Learning with Nature» project and awarded the amount requested by the center that operates at Quinta de Marim, headquarters of the Ria Formosa Natural Park. The project has been running since March, but today was the day chosen to make official the granting of the subsidy.
“We normally do not have the budget to carry out this type of environmental education actions, but we have been able to do them in recent years. But, until now, we did it without resources. In this way, we will be able to reach many more people, especially here in the municipality of Olhão and their children and young people», he explained to Sul Informação Fábia Azevedo, coordinator of RIAS, on the sidelines of the symbolic delivery ceremony of Auchan's check.
With this money, the center intends to reach more and more youngsters, but also to take them to the RIAS and Quinta de Marim. «For us it is important that kids leave schools and get in touch with nature, in order to understand the world around them. And this funding will allow us to do field trips, ringing sessions, buy materials for volunteer actions and, with all this, raise awareness in the community», he said.
This support will also make it possible to change the RIAS reception room. With the projector and the new computer, it is now possible to «conduct lectures with image projection, which until now was not possible». This Thursday, the center managed to secure more support from the Jumbo de Olhão “which was not included in the project”, a television that will allow live broadcasting of images of the cages where the animals are recovering. “People cannot enter our hospital, but this way they can see without interfering. We already have an internal video-surveillance circuit, which was offered to us by sistronica», said Fábia Azevedo.
The person in charge of the center does not hide that 2017 "is being a good year", as far as support is concerned. RIAS has operated, since its creation, with a base annual budget of 40 thousand euros, guaranteed by ANA Aeroportos. This year, money coming from the Jumbo Foundation for Youth and the 9 euros subsidy that were awarded by the Municipality of Olhão, which are also being used in the promotion of environmental education initiatives, will be added to this sum.
As for the money now received, "it is an initial boost" since, although the financed project will last for one year, the materials to be acquired will allow "it to continue in the coming years".
The entity that granted this support, moreover, insists that the projects it subsidizes have a continuity, despite the support being only for one year. “One of the criteria for the approval of projects has to do with their perpetuity. The Foundation, when evaluating applications, sees what remains for the future. And here is a set of materials that will provide the RIAS with greater capacity to carry out environmental education», considered António Santos, responsible for Jumbo de Olhão, in statements to our newspaper.
The Jumbo Youth Foundation awarded subsidies to «projects that aim to develop children and young people from 5 to 25 years old in the areas of health, education and social integration», within the scope of the Auchan Group's social responsibility policy. The proposals are made at a local level, by each of the stores, with the RIAS being associated with the Jumbo de Olhão. This establishment had already seen one of its proposals, in support of ACASO, win five years ago. “Now, here we are able to finance this project with 12 thousand euros, which makes us very proud”, he said.
The project also includes initiatives involving Jumbo de Olhão employees. A volunteer action is planned, involving those who work at the supermarket in Olhão, but also the visit of workers and their children to the center, to watch the release of a bird in the wild.
António Santos and the other guests present also had the opportunity to see the release of an animal recovered at the RIAS, in this case a round-wing eagle. And, since the project supported by Auchan is aimed at the little ones, students from a school who were visiting Quinta de Marim were invited to watch the release of this bird of prey.
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