Help Alivo Restaurant in Puerto Escondido
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Hola!
I am the owner of a restaurant called Alivo Kuauitl in the small surf town of Puerto Escondido in the state of Oaxaca, Mexico.
Our little town is visited each year by tourists from all around the world, including many Australian surfers and nature lovers on whose business we rely to stay open and feed our families.
But with the current global lockdowns and the complete standstill in tourism due to the COVID-19 pandemic, economic survival is becoming impossible.
Puerto Escondido is a close-knit community of some 50,000 people with a shallow cash economy and no major industry in which folks can easily find gainful employment. Many here live under the poverty line, surviving hand to mouth - many are already finding it difficult to feed themselves in these times.
Mexico more broadly is headed towards a deep recession; businesses are legally obliged to shut up shop and the burdens of the pandemic are already showing signs of overwhelming the public health system. The hospital in Puerto itself has only three ICU beds and ventilators, so should a spike in COVID-19 cases break out, the results could be grim for far too many in our community.
As for us at Alivo, we’ve been closed for a month and a half already and most likely will have to remain closed for the foreseeable future – until the incidence of the virus slows down in Mexico, which appears a long way off.
Unfortunately, my seven employees and their families (local folks who depend entirely on the restaurant’s income to survive) are already enduring serious hardship, struggling to meet basic personal expenses.
Worse still, I have little means to support them and their families.
Under current circumstances, I will be forced to close the restaurant’s doors completely if I can’t meet essential expenses – rent and basic wages - over the coming weeks and months. This will leave us all out of work and with no prospects of finding alternative income sources, a situation that could go from bad to worse very quickly.
Here in Puerto, we don’t have the same resources available to setup relief funds and easily raise money to help our workers and the most vulnerable folks get through the next few months. And so, I thought I would appeal to folks outside of Mexico, to our friends who have traveled here and dined with us before, to our friends who find themselves in happier, more fortunate circumstances right now, to help us through this difficult time with whatever you can spare.
Every contribution helps us to stay fed, healthy and safe.
And, of course, we will always endeavour to pay it forward when we can.
*****************
A breakdown of our fundraising goal:
(NB: I expect I will need to keep the restaurant closed for the next eight months – any meaningful tourism is not likely to resume until at least that time - and so have calculated an ideal fundraising goal on that basis. My estimates are based on reduced monthly wages converted into Australian dollars from Mexican pesos.):
Manager, 1000 AUD/month
Head chef, 1000 AUD/month
Sous chef, 900 AUD/month
Line chef, 750 AUD/month
Cook – 550 AUD/month
Waitress – 750 AUD/month
Kitchen hand 400 AUD/month
Rent and maintenance – 900 AUD/month
Monthly fundraising goal: 6,250 AUD/month
Total fundraising goal (covering a period of 8 months): 50,000 AUD
MUCHAS GRACIAS!
I am the owner of a restaurant called Alivo Kuauitl in the small surf town of Puerto Escondido in the state of Oaxaca, Mexico.
Our little town is visited each year by tourists from all around the world, including many Australian surfers and nature lovers on whose business we rely to stay open and feed our families.
But with the current global lockdowns and the complete standstill in tourism due to the COVID-19 pandemic, economic survival is becoming impossible.
Puerto Escondido is a close-knit community of some 50,000 people with a shallow cash economy and no major industry in which folks can easily find gainful employment. Many here live under the poverty line, surviving hand to mouth - many are already finding it difficult to feed themselves in these times.
Mexico more broadly is headed towards a deep recession; businesses are legally obliged to shut up shop and the burdens of the pandemic are already showing signs of overwhelming the public health system. The hospital in Puerto itself has only three ICU beds and ventilators, so should a spike in COVID-19 cases break out, the results could be grim for far too many in our community.
As for us at Alivo, we’ve been closed for a month and a half already and most likely will have to remain closed for the foreseeable future – until the incidence of the virus slows down in Mexico, which appears a long way off.
Unfortunately, my seven employees and their families (local folks who depend entirely on the restaurant’s income to survive) are already enduring serious hardship, struggling to meet basic personal expenses.
Worse still, I have little means to support them and their families.
Under current circumstances, I will be forced to close the restaurant’s doors completely if I can’t meet essential expenses – rent and basic wages - over the coming weeks and months. This will leave us all out of work and with no prospects of finding alternative income sources, a situation that could go from bad to worse very quickly.
Here in Puerto, we don’t have the same resources available to setup relief funds and easily raise money to help our workers and the most vulnerable folks get through the next few months. And so, I thought I would appeal to folks outside of Mexico, to our friends who have traveled here and dined with us before, to our friends who find themselves in happier, more fortunate circumstances right now, to help us through this difficult time with whatever you can spare.
Every contribution helps us to stay fed, healthy and safe.
And, of course, we will always endeavour to pay it forward when we can.
*****************
A breakdown of our fundraising goal:
(NB: I expect I will need to keep the restaurant closed for the next eight months – any meaningful tourism is not likely to resume until at least that time - and so have calculated an ideal fundraising goal on that basis. My estimates are based on reduced monthly wages converted into Australian dollars from Mexican pesos.):
Manager, 1000 AUD/month
Head chef, 1000 AUD/month
Sous chef, 900 AUD/month
Line chef, 750 AUD/month
Cook – 550 AUD/month
Waitress – 750 AUD/month
Kitchen hand 400 AUD/month
Rent and maintenance – 900 AUD/month
Monthly fundraising goal: 6,250 AUD/month
Total fundraising goal (covering a period of 8 months): 50,000 AUD
MUCHAS GRACIAS!
Organizer and beneficiary
Alejandro Zamorano
Organizer
Kirribilli, NSW
Elizabeth Effeney
Beneficiary