ALTO XINGU, Brazil – This year, we won’t celebrate Kuarup, the most important traditional ritual in Upper Xingu, the first indigenous territory demarcated in Brazil in 1961. Through Kuarup we celebrate our dead with dances, fights and painted bodies, and invite guests from the territory and beyond to participate. Eight ethnic groups get together to say goodbye to the departed. But for the first time in history, we will stay in mourning until our ritual can be performed again in the next dry season, in August 2021. Until then we will cry for the many more who will succumb to this new threat.
Well before the coronavirus reached our territories and caused its first death — a 45-day-old baby — the indigenous peoples of Brazil were facing another dangerous threat: President Jair Bolsonaro. He has made clear with his rhetoric that he is against indigenous causes and the environment, and we fear that the president will use this health crisis to let the virus spread and kill many native Brazilians, as happened with the measles outbreak in 1954, still very much alive in our memory.

"I just want to thank you for you support. That's all I wanted to say. " -Cheif Afukaka Kuikuro
"The entire Kukuro village thanks you for your support" -Yanama Kuikuro, President AIKAX.

The Champlain Housing Trust (CHT) has gone out on a limb to help lead Vermont’s responses to vulnerable populations during the coronavirus crisis.
Among other actions, the CHT successfully:

• Transformed Harbor Place (one of its properties) overnight, when the crisis first hit, to serve as an isolation motel for people that were living in congregate homes, shelters, tent encampments or on the street and were exhibiting symptoms of COVID-19 
• Added staffing, support services, meal and medication delivery to fill the immediate need of preventing the spread of the virus in high risk settings.
• Purchased a van to help the Community Health Centers of Burlington increase mobile coronavirus testing capacity in Chittenden County and made that testing available to those with least access to other facilities.
• Helped more than 6,000 residents navigate the financial, health, and emotional uncertainties caused by the pandemic and identified resources that will help stabilize people in their housing.
• Kept tenants from being evicted during this pandemic because of lost income or need to attend to their, or someone else’s, health needs. 

These efforts have come at a tremendous cost, and will result in ongoing financial stress for both the people CHT serves and to the organization itself . 

​Pennywise is proud to support CHT’s immediate and effective response through our Urgent Response Fund. Our thanks to CHT and all of Vermont’s essential service providers.

Even before the Covid-19 crisis the indigenous people of the southern Amazon were facing unprecedented threats.  Widespread deforestation, fires and a hostile government are decimating their tropical forest homes and have left them fighting for their very survival. Now they also face the coronavirus and the reality that a single infection, if spread, could destroy entire villages.

The Kuikuro indigenous community of the Upper Xingu region is responding. As part of a multicultural collaboration, the Amazon Hope Collective, the Kuikuro have banded together with other indigenous communities, scientists, public health experts and other key stakeholders to implement an immediate crisis response that will also lead to long term solutions. 

Since early March the Kuikuro have been using modern geospatial tools (available in their village because of other recent efforts of the Collective) to create precise information on health conditions as well as movement and transportation of goods in the area. This has allowed them to coordinate reparations and response planning with the Brazilian health system to help them cope with the health emergency. 

This model has been enormously successful in identifying what will be needed to protect the people of the Xingu. But now we need your help meeting those needs. The Amazon Hope Collective aims to raise $20,000 in 20 days to bring lifesaving medical supplies and protective gear to the Xingu before it is too late. 

“Stay Home Stay Safe” orders create a dangerous contradiction for far too many whose homes are anything. The economic impact of this global crisis is also leading to terrible choices for survivors who may have to remain in or return to an abusive relationship due to the financial strains they are facing. 

That’s why the Pennywise Urgent Response Fund is supporting the economic justice programming at Steps to End Domestic Violence.  

Join us by giving now so that more people can, truly, be safe in their homes.

The Pennywise Urgent Response fund is supporting:

ShiftMeals
ShiftMeals, a program being conducted by Skinny Pancake, provides nourishing meals for those in need in Vermont. They serve anyone and everyone who needs a meal: laid-off restaurant workers, musicians, artists, gig workers, farmers, anyone affected by this crisis. They also share meals through food shelves and community meal sites.  

Steps to End Domestic Violence
The COVID-19 crisis and Stay Home Stay Safe orders present enormous challenges to survivors of domestic violence.  Beyond the heightened need for emotional support services, isolate-in-place safety planning and crisis intervention,  people impacted by violence and abuse are likely to experience additional stressors with lost work, closed schools and social isolation. Steps is working hard to help its service users navigate these unprecedented challenges. 

Vermonters for Criminal Justice Reform
VCJR and its partners are working to improve the Vermont Department of Corrections (DOC) response to the current crisis and to hold DOC accountable to prisoners’ rights. Among other critical issues VCJR is demanding testing of all incarcerated people in Vermont, affordable access to video and telephone visitation and removing barriers to the release of non-violent offenders.  

SOIL
COVID-19 is devastating health systems far more prepared and resilient than those in Haiti, which are under-resourced and already overwhelmed. As the country braces for the worst of the crisis to hit, SOIL recognizes that it is more critical than ever to safeguard the provision of SOIL’s lifesaving sanitation service. To prepare they are cross-training staff, hiring additional team members and working to rapidly acquire additional Wi-Fi hot-spots, personal protective equipment, and other necessary materials to see them through this challenging time.  

Amazon Hope
Pennywise has been partnering with the William Talbott Hillman Foundation and leading Amazonian scientists to make sure that immediate needs of the Kuikuro, an indigenous community of the Upper XIngu region of  the southern Amazon are being addressed as they face the coronavirus. Efforts have included support for traveling Kuikuro returning to the village; securing supplies including food, gas, soap, and cloth for masks; and adapting village structures for quarantine. 

We couldn't do it without you. Thank you for your support!

Pennywise has been working with the Amazon Hope team on a preparedness plan for the Kuikuro of the Xingu region of the Amazon. Together we have mounted a response that includes:

• Support for traveling Kuikuro returning to the village;
• Getting supplies including food, gas, soap, cloth for masks, clear plastic and parts for equipment; and 
• Adapting structures in the village for quarantine
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Nurses and health monitors are currently being trained in the Xingu and all hands are on deck to protect indigenous communities from the devastation that could come from Covid-19.

​Together we can save lives.