COVID 19 has reached the rainforest territories of the Ecuadorian Amazon. Indigenous populations living there are extremely vulnerable to disease due to long existing inequity, exclusion from access to public service as well as geographic isolation. Elders are dying. They are the guardians of thousands of years of ancestral knowledge about the Amazon rainforest animals and medicinal plants. There is lack of testing, medicine and basic supplies. The Indians there are reliant on the rivers for food and water which have become polluted because of oil spills and careless habits by international companies.
CEFAS (Center for Environment, Fisheries, and Aquaculture Science) is an organization in the Ecuadorean Amazon basin that we will work with. They are based in Morona Santiago province and are already working with the Shuar tribes living at risk.
We want to fund CEFAS to produce educational preventative material about COVID 19 in Achuar as well as Spanish, and distribute desperately needed masks, alcohol, soap, cleaning supplies, food, water filters, and medicine. $2000
CEFAS will perform the above as well as outreach to the population about general health, domestic violence and children rights. Our Eclub will work with CEFAS online through ZOOM and be in contact with them weekly to monitor progress.
The goal is to stabilize this indigenous population from the threat of extinction because of COVID 19 so:
1) They can thrive in their society by receiving pandemic preventative
2) The world can continue to benefit from its valuable knowledge of the local medicinal plants and traditions as well as the Amazon as the life force of our planet plants
|