Emergency Pandemic Community Response
Unable to travel to the remote watersheds where we normally work, we have pivoted our normal community support strategies to work through our indigenous partners during the COVID-19 pandemic on two emergency initiatives.
Indigenous families stranded in Pucallpa receiving bags of food and essential supplies.
The first is by providing essential food, medicines, and disinfectants and cleaning supplies to indigenous people from remote regions stranded in the city of Pucallpa due to travel restrictions. Those most in need include members of the Juni Kuin, Yaminahua, Amahuaca, and Asheninka tribes from the Yurua and Purús regions. We have helped over 130 families—roughly 600 people—since May. Most recently, we provided medicines and vitamins to eight indigenous women to treat illnesses among their 15 children.
The majority of funding for these efforts was provided by our first ever GoFundMe campaign, which raised over $5,500 in just a few weeks. Thank you again to all the donors who helped us provide critical support to our indigenous friends in Peru during these challenging times!
Our second initiative was enabling the indigenous federation of the Inuya and Mapuya rivers (FIARIM) of the Urubamba River region to travel by river to deliver emergency food and medicines to its constituent communities. Given the absence of any assistance from the government, we are fortunate to have been able to help FIARIM assist some of the most remote, neglected, and politically marginalized indigenous communities anywhere in the Peruvian Amazon.
The majority of this funding was provided by Global Greengrants Fund in partnership with Rainforest Action Network.
UAC produced banners with basic information about COVID-19 for distribution to communities in the upper Inuya River.