INDIGENOUS EMERGENCY
ACTION PLAN AGAINST COVID-19 PANDEMIC IN BRAZILA proposal by the indigenous movement and its partners to save lives and prevent the increase in the tragedy of the Coronavirus pandemic among the country’s indigenous peoples.
COVID-19 arrived in the indigenous territories in an overwhelming way. Indigenous lives are being lost at an increasing pace. We are facing an unprecedented humanitarian tragedy and we need to come together and act. The time is now!
The Articulação dos Povos Indígenas do Brasil (Articulation of Indigenous Peoples of Brazil, APIB) presents an indigenous emergency plan to confront COVID-19 in Brazil and calls on everyone to support measures that can save lives and exercise solidarity. Indigenous peoples are among the most vulnerable groups to the spread of the disease and are without proper conditions to face the pandemic. We need everyone’s support.
This is a plan to orient the actions of indigenous organizations linked to APIB and partnering non-indigenous institutions. To this end, it proposes general guidelines for the preparation of regional and local action plans to be presented by the organizations executing the proposals. In this sense, the plan will be implemented in a cooperative manner throughout the national territory in order to strengthen and enhance network actions. Likewise, it intends to institutionally strengthen indigenous organizations linked to APIB and other partners of the Brazilian indigenous movement.
The proposals within this emergency plan are the result of two broad participatory processes, the Acampamento Terra Livre (Free Earth Camp) and the Assembleia Nacional de Resistência Indígena (National Assembly of Indigenous Resistance), both carried out in 2020 in a virtual form due to the pandemic. These events included countless indigenous leaders from all over the country, in addition to specialists in indigenous health from various civil society organizations.