About 250 families are receiving monthly support from the Audiovisual Union (AU), an informal group created in the context of the pandemic to help workers in the Culture sector, Ricardo Queluz, told Lusa.

According to Ricardo Queluz, food is being distributed monthly to about 250 families, of which 110 are requested in the Lisbon region. "We have a lot more families now in Lisbon than in July," he said. In July, Ricardo Queluz told Lusa that the AU was supporting between 150 and 160 people per week nationwide.

Food collections were made weekly, near supermarkets and in some places with donations, but now there are fixed points - almost twenty - scattered throughout the country, including in Ponta Delgada, in the Azores.

Among the supported professionals "there are managing partners who have not yet had support, self-employed workers who have support in June and now do not, there are some who have now and who have not had at the beginning [of the pandemic], and there are some who have not yet managed to have anything" from social support announced by the Government, said Ricardo Queluz.

The Audiovisual Union is supporting sound technicians, performance workers, theatre artists, hairdressers for television and film programmes. "We are talking about everything inside the audiovisual sphere" whose work has been affected, because it has been cancelled, suspended or postponed because of restrictive measures to contain the pandemic.

Currently, there are food collection points in Évora, Aljezur, Faro, Olhão, Ponta Delgada, Coimbra, Lisbon, Queluz, Amadora, Pinhal Novo, Montijo, Almada, Feijó, Corroios, Caldas da Rainha, Peniche and Porto.

In addition to the regular collection of food at these fixed points or in shows associated with the AU, sporadic actions have taken place to support professionals.