You see our work every day on Facebook; so we thought today we would take an opportunity to provide an insider´s view of the work being undertaken by our volunteers on a daily basis to get our reports to you.
A typical day at SCP consists of many specialist volunteers – including Maria, Dalia, Rolf, Daniel, Joan, Louise (and several others who prefer to be private) researching and sending reports to us during the day as news emerges in their areas which is then collated and edited by the core team (David, Elise and Chris) and either posted immediately or edited ready for the next day´s report.
As SCP now has 26,000 followers on Facebook, a significant 45% increase since the start of the pandemic. We now have to respond to a significant amount of posts and we understand the importance of this task for the communities.
Our Facebook posts are widely shared, with your help, and the highest reach was 78,219 at the introduction of the first state of Emergency and the second highest 69,621 on 11th May. On average we reach about 31,000 per day.
The introduction to and main body of the daily SITREP report is compiled by David and Chris from reports from our volunteers and the Overseas Report written by Louise Birch are compiled over the day and following morning and posted – normally, the SITREP by 0930 latest and Overseas report by 1100. SCooP features as well of course, with poems provided by Julie.
So we do not forget our core responsibilities of crime prevention, Leanne prepares a weekly crime prevention and awareness report which is published on Thursdays
Throughout the day (and often late at night), our translators, Eliana, Clare and, Jenny, with the support of our proof reader Jennie, are available to translate any documentation, laws, guidance and advice by government and other agencies in Portugal which we then publish – often the first English translation available in Portugal.
Throughout the day, our Facebook moderators Eliana, Louise, David and Elise answer the numerous questions and comments posted in reaction to our publications and posts – right through to the evening. This happens 7 days a week. In fact during March and May the number of responses we made was nearly 14,000 so you can see the enormity of this one task alone!
Trying to keep up to date with various laws is demanding and even in Portuguese can be complex. These are monitored daily, Lilia and Eliana providing assistance with translation and clarification.
All this information is uploaded onto our website by Elise and David, and over the last 12c weeks the average daily page visit is around 9000. Please therefore continue to visit our website to get the information and advice you need from official sources.
In the meantime, David is often in communication with government, police, civil protection and local government agencies several tones a day to confirm details before we post advice.