The charity Caritas responded to the needs of nearly 10,000 people in Majorca last year, many of them suffering because of lack of employment.
This number represented an increase of over 25% of people attended to in Palma - 4,229 in all - but also a decrease of a similar amount in parts of the island away from the capital.
This fall does, though, have to take into account the fact that Caritas’ record-keeping is only computerised for Palma.
According to the Catholic Church’s charity’s report for 2014, the years of economic crisis witnessed an intensification in the process of social exclusion - a situation that is more chronic than ever before - and last year the level of direct aid that Caritas provided exceeded a million euros for the first time. This is a barrier that the charity was “not proud” of, as it was evidence of the needs that many people have, and to this one million euros had to be added the constant financial and material aid provided through the island’s parishes.
The main needs that Caritas met were, firstly, basic ones for food, hygiene products and clothing, followed by housing - rents, mortgages, community payments - and those for children: there was a 25% rise in requests for help to cover basic necessities for children, such as milk or clothing. The charity also dealt with training in order to provide an alternative to chronic poverty because of unemployment. The director of Caritas Mallorca, Margalida Riutort, and other officials of the charity plus the episcopal delegate to the charity, presented the report yesterday under the theme of “much still remains to be done”.
Caritas comes to the rescue of 10,000 people on Majorca