The City Council of São Brás de Alportel is "outraged" for being the only municipality in the Algarve that was left out of the list of municipalities that can benefit from Local Social Development Contracts, published in an order of 4 January.
The São Brasense municipality says that, in this way, the municipality was «excluded from this possibility of access to financial support, promoters of development and social cohesion, a situation that the municipality considers highly harmful to the population».
The mayor of São Brás Vítor Guerreiro is already “developing steps with the minister of Labour, Solidarity and Social Security, to rectify the order, and is currently awaiting a response from the Government to this appeal”.
In the view of the municipality, nothing justifies the exclusion of São Brás from the Program of Local Contracts for Social Development, which is intended “to financially support, through application, inclusion projects aimed at improving the levels of social cohesion in the targeted territories”.
«As demographic aging is one of the criteria of fragility, along with unemployment, the São Brasense municipality is very surprised to find this exclusion when the county has a demographic aging index (157,5) higher than the Algarve average (142,3) and the country (155,4) and when we are talking about a municipality, a single parish, in which 2/3 of the territory is composed of forest area, in Serra do Caldeirão», illustrated the Chamber.
The fact that it is a mountain council covered predominantly by forest area translates into «a serious threat of human aging and desertification, which imposes an enormous challenge and the necessary investment in strategies aimed at countering desertification and encouraging social and social dynamisation. of these areas, understanding that this support could be an excellent opportunity for this».
Vítor Guerreiro also asks for "the collaboration and commitment of regional entities in solving this problem", further underlining their "determination to defend the interests of São Brás de Alportel and demand the Government to restore this possibility of support, essential to the development of the county and of its population'.
Comments