This week, Australian actress Cate Blanchett visited cities affected by the floods that hit Rio Grande do Sul in the first half of this year. She came to Brazil on a mission from the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR), of which she is an ambassador.
“Every refugee I met in Brazil experienced the double, sometimes triple, horror of being forced to move, not once or twice, but three times – each time losing everything they had and having to rebuild their lives from scratch. More and more often, this displacement is caused by extreme weather events”, he declared during the visit.
In Porto Alegre, the actress visited Sarandi, one of the neighborhoods most affected by the May floods. There, she met Johanna, a single mother who was a refugee from Venezuela. “With her three young children, she lost her job and home in the May floods and was without food or power for days on end. She told me: ‘My children are still very traumatized. When it rained yesterday, they hid under the kitchen table. I need to be prepared for when there is another flood. I need to rebuild with bricks this time,’” Cate reported.
Cate Blanchett was with Governor Eduardo Leite, who highlighted the actress’s “tremendous empathy” with the people who were affected by the flood. “I had the privilege of talking to her at length at a dinner at Piratini Palace and witnessing a surprising amount of friendliness. Her presence was remarkable and charming”, said the politician on his Instagram profile.
In addition to Porto Alegre, Cate visited the cities of Taquari and Cruzeiro do Sul. She was in the country between last Monday, 16th, and Wednesday, 18th.
According to Civil Defense, of the 497 municipalities in Rio Grande do Sul, 472 were hit by floods in the first half of the year, affecting more than 2.3 million people.
