18.05.2020 / News / Covid-19 / Ministry of Justice

The UVW fundraiser to support Emanuel Gomes’ family gets off to a roaring start

On Friday the 15th of May 2020 UVW launched a fundraiser to repatriate the body of Emanuel Gomes to his family in Guinea Bissau.

Emanuel was a member of UVW and a loving father and husband who moved to the UK from Portugal in 2018 to be able to better support his wife and daughter financially. He worked as a cleaner at the Ministry of Justice (MoJ) but was outsourced to cleaning company OCS.

As an outsourced worker he was denied proper sick pay, paid a poverty wage and enjoyed little to no job security. The lack of proper sick pay meant he had no choice but to travel into central London on public transport in the midst of this deadly pandemic, all so he could clean empty government offices. Something which ultimately contributed to his tragic death on the 23rd of April 2020 from suspected Coronavirus.

The fundraiser has so far been a roaring success, amassing £8,622 in the space of 72 hours. However, there is still a long distance to go to reach the overall target of £25,000. So, if you are reading this and want to support Emanuel’s family in this desperate time of need and return his body back to them please donate to the fundraiser which can be found here.