"Healthcare programs for indigenous peoples in Brazil are overseen by a federal agency, called FUNASA, under the Ministry of Health. In Northern Brazil, the Yanomami have denounced an alarming increase in malaria cases, exacerbated by illegal gold mining. Currently, medical assistance is not getting to the communities because of bureaucratic hurdles around the approval of airstrips in the Yanomami Area – something that has never been a problem either there or elsewhere. Indeed, many of the scandals involving FUNASA have taken place within the Yanomami health program. In the Javari Valley, a vast indigenous area in the western Amazon, hepatitis and malaria epidemics are ravaging the Kanamari, Matis, Marubo Tsohom-dyapa, and Korubo, as well as isolated groups that live in the region. "
For these and other reasons, indigenous organizations, organizations on human rights, racial equality and policies for women are mobilizing for what the Senate does not change the Bill of Conversion and vote before the 4th of August, when expiry of the term MP 483.
We hope that through a new, independent government office, indigenous healthcare will receive the attention it deserves.
Please sign the letter to the Brazilian Senate
Learn more and participate by sending the signing the petition at the link! We need a lot of signatures and we have only four days. Thank you!
We need a lot of signatures and we have only four days.
Thank you!
http://www.change.org/rainforest_foundation/petitions/view/indigenous_healthcare_under_threat_in_brazil
>> photo of Yanomami people at the Indigenous National Festival, Bertioga, Brazil.