Sao Paulo honors victims of COVID-19 with memorial

1. First physical memorial of those fallen from the coronavirus in Sao Paulo.
2. Trees representing life planted along with sculpture installation.
3. Time capsule will reveal in 100 years messages of condolence from the time of COVID-19.

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The city of Sao Paulo is honoring its victims of the COVID-19 Coronavirus with the delivery of the first physical memorial of the municipality dedicated to the theme and installed in Carmo Municipal Park in the East Zone. In addition to planting native trees from the rain forest, the area has a sculpture that was donated by Sao Paulo Public Ministry in partnership with Projeto Hígia Mente Saudável.

“The City Hall of Sao Paulo felt the need to pay tribute to the families and people who were victims of this tragic disease, which is the COVID-19. Therefore, we are going to make this memorial, which may serve not only for the city of Sao Paulo, but also for the State and for the whole world. The tree means life, and we will do the planting in some parks, according to the native forest of Sao Paulo,” affirmed the Secretary of Green and Environment, Eduardo de Castro.

The memorial represents human resilience and solidarity, offering a physical space for reflection. The space invites haunters to a moment of hope. For this reason, the white ipe was the symbol chosen to represent this moment experienced by humanity, given its resilient, contemplative, and medicinal character.

The idea of planting new trees in honor of the victims of COVID in the city of Sao Paulo was born out of a conversation between Mayor Bruno Covas and Secretary of Green and Environment, Eduardo de Castro, and was announced on June 5 of last year, World Environment Day, and started on July 6.

So far, 3,338 seedlings have been planted in the Fazenda do Carmo Municipal Natural Park and another 3,303 in the Carmo Municipal Park, totaling 6,641 trees of native species: araçá, ipe-branco, jequitibá-branco, aroeira-pimentaira, pitanga, guava, jabuticaba, paineira, cherry-of-rio-grande, uvaia, and jatobá. All seedlings come from the Harry Blossfeld Nursery.

The director of the SVMA’s Urban Arborization Division, Priscilla Cerqueira, emphasized the importance of this tribute, “In this very delicate moment that we are going through, the planting of trees represents affection and respect for the victims’ families; it is a living reminder of these people, present in the park, a woodland that will soon have flowers and fruits.”

To give representation to the memorial, the City of Sao Paulo received the donation of a sculpture made by the Victim Reception, Analysis and Conflict Resolution Program (AVARC) of the Sao Paulo Public Ministry and by the Higia Mente Healthy Project.

The monument has a time capsule where people from all over the world can leave messages of condolence and tell their experiences in fighting the Coronavirus. The messages received will be encoded and transformed into capsules, which will be deposited at the base of the work, telling the story of those who are gone and messages of condolence from those who have lost a loved one. The capsules will be sealed at the base of the memorial monument for a period of 100 years in order to have a reliable memory of the pandemic for future generations.

Sao Paulo City Hall emphasized the importance for the capital of partnerships with companies and organizations and places itself at the disposal of other representatives of the private sector and third sector who wish to contribute to the city.