Flamengo joined the solidarity campaign that ex-footballer Kaká and the writer Paulo Coelho also make up for the donation of resources that allow the purchase of oxygen cylinders for covid-19 patients in the Brazilian state of Amazonas, in sanitary collapse.
The last champion of the Brazilian League and the Copa Libertadores, in 2019, “will auction three autographed shirts by all the players and the money raised will be used to buy more oxygen,” Thiago Souto, president of the organization, told EFE. Government Salaada Solidario.
“Many clubs are helping us and this gesture by Flamengo moves us, the most important thing is that we get oxygen for everyone who is in need,” said Souto, alluding to the lack of this resource in public and private hospitals in Amazonas, mainly in Manaus, the regional capital.
The players of the Rio de Janeiro club recorded a video in which they stamped their signature on the three shirts, one of them from the full back Filipe Luis, former player of the Spanish club Atlético de Madrid, and two of them, Rodrigo Caio and Éverton Ribero, took the voice of the group to send a message to the affected region.
“We are in prayer and everything will be fine,” said defender Caio Ribeiro in the message for Salaada Solidario.
The creative Diego Ribas, also a former Atlético de Madrid player, had already sought out the entity that since 2009 has led various citizen participation campaigns in the Amazon to make a personal donation of cylinders, as did the attacker of the Brazilian team and the English Everton Richarlison.
The example was followed by the side Fabinho, of the English Liverpool; the striker Thiago Galhardo, scorer of the Brazilian League and Porto Alegre International; the striker Éverton, from the Portuguese Benfica, and the star Kaká, former Real Madrid player and champion with Brazil in the 2002 World Cup in South Korea-Japan.
“It is very nice to see this, that without rivalry, without team colors, everyone wants to help in this cause,” said Souto about the initiative of the group of athletes that raised 100,000 reais (about $ 20,000) for the purchase of oxygen cylinders.
THE ARTISTS ALSO JOIN
The campaign was also joined by the writer Paulo Coelho, the youtubers Whindersson Nunes and Felipe Neto, the comedians Tirulipa and Tatá Werneck and the singers Marilia Mendonça, Gusttavo Lima, Wésley Safadao, Simone and Tierry, all of them with millions of followers in their social networks.
Brazil, one of the three countries hardest hit by covid-19 in absolute numbers next to the United States and India, accumulates almost 210,000 deaths and 8.5 million confirmed cases, with the Amazon collapsing its health and funeral systems and lack of oxygen in hospitals.
The transfer of patients to other states and the mobilization of the Air Force and the Navy, by river, to move cylinders to the region made Venezuela donate 107,000 cubic meters of oxygen that have already crossed the border and expect to arrive on the night of this Monday to Manaus. EFE (HN).