São Paulo – Refugees living in São Paulo will have a chance to work during soccer matches at Arena Corinthians, the namesake team’s stadium in east side São Paulo. Sport Club Corinthians Paulista has already recruited three Congolese people, and it will hire seven other refugees to provide directions to fans during matches, including how to get to their seats or to the exit.
The guides will work as freelancers, getting paid on a per-job basis, depending on the complexity of the tasks performed, Corinthians’ Social Responsibility Department manager Sônia Andrade told ANBA. Refugees’ resumes will be sourced from Caritas, an organization that works to welcome and integrate foreigners into the country.
Refugees will also be hired to work at Corinthians’ Social Club. They will do clerk and cleaning work, and might be actual employees or hired by third party service providers. According to Corinthians culture and social responsibility director Donato Votta, applicants will also be referred by Caritas.
“The team has a strong social concern; it’s part of the team’s mission statement,” says Votta about the social actions targeting foreigners. He explains that Corinthians holds social responsibility efforts in each and every one of its games, and elsewhere as well. He notes that Corinthians is known as the “team of a thousand nations,” because it has always embraced everyone in a xenophobia-free way.
According to Votta, these social efforts have evolved into refugee work. “We have an employee who’s from Haiti,” the director says. The Haitian is not a refugee, but raised the team’s awareness to the issue nonetheless. Sônia Andrade claims the work during soccer games will help refugees to socialize, since they’ll have to speak to the fans and work on their Portuguese. It will also help dispel prejudice.
Last weekend, Corinthians carried out an action designed to integrate refugees. Saturday (16th), 80 refugees attended the São Paulo State Championship match Corinthians vs. Red Bull as guests, under an initiative called Time do Povo (the People’s Team), originally intended for children to spend a day experiencing Corinthians. They visit the headquarters and watch a game. In the case of refugees, however, the visit included adults, mostly families.
“It was delightful. I never thought they would be such Corinthians fans,” Andrade says. The participating refugees were from Syria, Congo, Angola, Guinea Bissau, Guinea Conakry, Colombia, Nigeria, and Mali. According to Andrade, those of them who were Arab were very sympathetic towards Corinthians. The children – there were 11 of them – entered the pitch alongside the players before the game. Corinthians won four-zero.
The visiting group was also referred by Caritas. Initially, 100 refugees were expected to participate, but the number of people and of nationalities was smaller because the game was moved ahead from Sunday to Saturday.
*Translated by Gabriel Pomerancblum
