The Government will increase aid to canteens and picnic areas with the creation of a new program

In the midst of a dispute with social organizations and picket lines, the government has created a program to boost support for soup kitchens and picnic areas.

By Resolution 230/2023published this Wednesday in the Official Bulletinthe Ministry of Social Development launched the initiative “Flow Community”who will aim “provide, in the context of the emergency, an economic benefit to help the soup kitchens and picnic areas of social and community organizations”.

The portfolio in charge of Victoria Toulouse Peace justified the measure considering that “it is essential to deepen all the actions” within the framework of “the food and nutritional emergency that our country is going through”.

The new program will begin to be implemented through a “pilot test” which will take place during a maximum period of eight monthsin which “the necessary evaluations and diagnoses will be carried out that will optimize the achievements obtained so far through a system of cash transfer through physical or virtual cards to kitchens, snack bars and social and community organizations for the acquisition of elements and/or products, in order to improve people’s conditions of vulnerability”.

The Ministry of Social Development aims to “improve the spaces frequented by people in a state of great social and economic vulnerability”, but also to accelerate the supply of picnic areas and social and community organizations; promote food production systems by strengthening the local solidarity, social and popular economy and cooperatives; promote the establishment of a traceability system in the food acquisition and consumption chain; and design and implement a system for monitoring and evaluating the results and impacts of the actions that make up the programmatic line, it was explained in the resolution published this morning in the Official Journal.

The aforementioned “programmatic line” consists of a physical and/or virtual prepaid card which will be issued to canteens, picnic areas, and social and associative organizations “which will be limited in terms of their use to food products, hygiene items, first aid equipment and items. It will aim to promote the supply of products and improve supply times to cover the demand to be covered in the places mentioned. In addition, assistance and training will be provided directly or through public or private institutions to canteens and picnic areas.

Establishments registered in the National Registry of Canteens and Picnic Areas (RENACOM) that meet a series of legal requirements can join the Alimentar Comunidad program. The amount of the corresponding accreditations will be determined according to the request that each one will provide. The government clarified that this measure will not apply to “those who receive other national subsidies, for the same concept and for the same purpose”.

The Ministry of Social Development has moved forward with this measure, which responds to one of the demands that the piquetero groups have been raising for a long time. Relations between the executive branch and opposition social organizations have become strained after the audit of the plans and the hundreds of thousands of victims of the Empowering Work program led by Tolosa Paz.

Last Friday, in front of the Casa Rosada, the Piquetera Unit voted for force measures against the administration of Alberto Fernandez These include marches, roadblocks and encampments across the country over the coming months.

For now, they agreed that the days 13 and 14 and 15 March they will develop demonstrations; he April 5 they will cut off access from national roads, road bridges, provincial roads and accesses and exits from the federal capital. Also, if they don’t get a response, the April 18, 19 and 20 They will promote a camp. The program that Tolosa Paz formalized today represents a gesture to respond to one of the demands of the piqueteros.

Continue reading: