BRAZIL | SOCIAL | PHOTOGRAPHY: Health

Showing posts with label Health. Show all posts

2010/08/07

Shawãdawa

A Shawãdawa men, also knowed as Arara do Acre, was happy at the Indigenous Meeting.

I'm also happy to tell you that after many letters that you sent this week, it finally happened the approval of the Draft Law on Conversion (PLV) 08/2010, at the Brazilian Federal Senate.
After the vote, the Indians moved, gathered at the entrance of the Congress and celebrated the victory, after almost two years of intense mobilization of indigenous leaders and organizations, calling for the end of the participation of Funasa.

With nearly 300 years of delay, the Senate approves creation of the Special Secretariat of Indigenous Health.
A historical neglect should start to be repaired.

2010/08/02

yanomami ritual

For the Yanomami, urihi, the forest-land, is not a mere inert space for economic exploration (of what we call 'nature'). It is a living entity, part of a complex cosmological dynamic of exchanges between humans and non-humans. As such, it today finds itself threatened by the reckless predation of whites. In the view of their leader:

"The forest-land will only die if it is destroyed by whites. Then, the creeks will disappear, the land will crumble, the trees will dry and the stones of the mountains will shatter under the heat. The xapiripë spirits who live in the mountain ranges and play in the forest will eventually flee. Their fathers, the shamans, will not be able to summon them to protect us. The forest-land will become dry and empty. The shamans will no longer be able to deter the smoke-epidemics and the malefic beings who make us ill. And so everyone will die."

Davi Kopenawa Yanomami

Information by: ISA
>> photo of Yanomami shamans at the Indigenous National Festival, Bertioga, Brazil.

Please sign the letter to the Brazilian Senate and help.
They still need many signatures:
Rainforest Foundation / petition

_________

Saiba mais e participe assinando no link abaixo:
Instituto Socioambiental: Saúde Indígena

2010/07/29

yanomami alert

"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!

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.