THE COMMUNITY RESPONSE TO THE PANDEMIC
Presenting the highest mortality rates of all Indigenous health districts in Brazil, the Tapajòs River Basin hosts several villages whose inhabitants are facing major threats to their livelihood and subsistence.
The pandemics hit hard on the local Munduruku communities, who faced the loss of a number of elders who were considered to be a sort of "living library", and therefore risking to lose their tradition and memory beside their loved ones. Tempest action supported by external aid - such as that from AmazonWatch - has been undertaken to face the crisis while demands towards the government are insistingly made.
WHAT IS BEING DONE
Without the implementation of a National Plan to address the emergency, the indigenous people are strongly relying on solidarity by privates and NGOs, being external aid necessary to cover the difficulties faced and not addressed by the government.
The community acted by trying to enforce isolation, preventing white people to get into the area, especially the madereiros (loggers), and also referred back to traditional agriculture to provide for their subsistence.
The FUNAI (National Indian Foundation), despite its role as a governmental agency for indians' interests and culture, has condemned the sanitary barriers created by the indigenous people, with the only recommendation to stay at home and ignore the invasions. Most of the intervention are therefore carried out directly by the Munduruku with the support of external organizations: the Indigenous Missionary Council has been addressing the crisis by providing food, medical supplies, and general equipment (such as fishery one) to the local population with the help of different partners, and so have done other associations such as Amazon Watch, the Pariri Indigenous Association, and the Wakoborun Women Association.
The Munduruku self-organisation
"Through the Pariri and Wakoborun associations, we, the Munduruku people, have launched an emergency campaign, gathering support from partners and public authorities to help us continue our voluntary isolation in our villages while maintaining food security."
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The group is undertaking actions in three main areas of intervention:
1. Health Services
2. Support for villages
3. Public Pressure
ACTIONS
ISOLATION
Together with the Association of Middle and High Tapajò, the Munduruku are establishing a "cordon insulation" to keep external people out of the indigenous area to prevent further contagion. Despite the critical situation, several invasions carried out by natural resources-seekers are still occurring without any government intervention to prevent them to happen.
FOOD SECURITY
The Pariri Association, with the help of CPT and other external supporters, has provided the eleven Munduruku villages with food supplies to face the scarcity caused by the isolation measures adopted to avoid contagion.
HEALTHCARE FACILITIES
Together with Special Indigenous Health District (DSEI) of the Tapajós the Munduruku are working to build intermediate care centers within schools or health posts throughout 17 Munduruku villages, which will include beds, hammocks, generators, oxygen monitoring equipment, medical equipment, medicine, and personal hygiene products.
TRADITIONAL MEDICINE
The Wakoborun Association promoted four productions of traditional drugs to be used together with the ones internationally recomended to cure the disease.
SUPPORTING OTHER GROUPS
Beside acting to the benefit of their own community, the Munduruku are helping also the Warao people, who were struggling for their subsitence even before the pandemics and that now are facing overcoming difficulties
SPREADING INFORMATION
The Wakoborun Association provides the inhabitants with all the needed informations on the recomended higienic measures to protect themselves. Besides, it is working hard to implement internet connection even to the farest villages.
THE PETITION
We, the Munduruku people of the upper and middle Tapajós River, are being devastated by Covid-19: ten have died among our elders, the guardians of our knowledge, our mothers, and our warriors. We’ve lost all of these, and many others are in serious condition.
We are a nation of 14,000 people living along the Tapajós River. In the upper Tapajós region, nearly 13,000 Munduruku live in roughly 140 villages in the municipality of Jacareacanga. In the middle Tapajós, eleven villages with about 1,000 Munduruku are situated in the municipality of Itaituba. In Jacareacanga, there is no hospital with an intensive care unit, and over 400 km away in Itaituba, a municipality with more than 100 thousand inhabitants, there are only four ICU beds with respirators. In this precarious situation, our very survival is at risk, and the suffering of our relatives only increases.
We demand that the Government of Pará and the Special Secretariat for Indigenous Health (SESAI) guarantee the following:
The installation of at least seven intermediate treatment units within Munduruku villages, provided with oxygen monitoring equipment, oxygen therapy, and tests to detect covid-19 and medicines. This will ensure that our relatives do not need to come to the cities and will receive the necessary care within their own territories, being removed only in severe cases. This care structure located within our villages was provided for in our coronavirus prevention and containment plan, and also has documents produced by DSEI Tapajós as references, such as OfÃcio No. 34/2020 / RT / DIASI / RT / DSEI / SESAI / MS and also "Proposal for the Implementation of COVID-19 Intermediate Support and Treatment Units at DSEI Guamá Tocantins" (SEI Process n. 25056.000564 / 2020-80);
The installation of more ICU beds with respirators in Itaituba, as the few that will soon be operational in the Regional Hospital will not be enough, considering the exponential increase in confirmed cases in the municipality (reaching more than 1,000 on June 6).
We also demand the installation of ICU beds with respirators in Jacareacanga, either in partnership with the Jacareacanga Municipal Hospital or by investing in the installation of a field hospital, as recommended by the World Health Organization for regions where hospital care networks are at capacity, as is our case;
Intensive care physicians for these hospital units, along with a comprehensive health care team – with doctors, nurses and therapists – to work in the intermediate units located within Munduruku villages;
The availability of on-demand air transport for cases that have to be urgently removed to other cities, if there are no more ICU vacancies in the nearby cities.
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All the images are taken from the Munduruku Official Website