Indigenous Peoples in Brazil have fought a historical and ongoing struggle against widespread deforestation, illegal land invasions, gold mining, fires and violence. Now with the Covid-19 crisis, they face an extreme threat to their very survival - one single infection could decimate whole communities.

The Kuikuro are a community of around 800 people living with other 15 indigenous peoples in the Xingu Indigenous Territory, a protected area of more than 2.6 million hectares. The Xingu Indigenous leaders are calling on their communities to adhere to a lockdown in their villages and stop the comings and goings to and from the cities, fearing the coronavirus could be devastating to the villages that have very limited access to medical care. It is commonplace for individuals to travel to and from nearby cities for work and shopping and there is obvious concern to cut this to an absolute minimum at present.

AIKAX (Kuikuro Indigenous Association) has set up a way in which essential items are bought from trusted suppliers in the closest city Canarana, 200km away, brought down river by boat, and collected by one designated member of the village to minimize any risk of exposure. They are running out of money to pay for the freight and for supplies of hygiene and medical items, basic food baskets, petrol for fishing boats, and diesel for their generator. Your support means an incredible amount to safeguarding the Kuikuro community.

People's Palace Projects will use all donations to this campaign either to purchase supplies for the Kuikuro directly, or to transfer on to AIKAX or PPPdoBrasil to organise purchases/deliveries: we will not charge for our time, the only deductions will be for costs of money transfer.