São Gabriel da Cachoeira (850 km west of Manaus) will celebrate Indigenous Day this Monday (19) with the inauguration of a Casa da Mulher (women’s center) and an oxygen plant that was transported by land, water, and air from Paraná. The municipality has the largest indigenous population in the country.
Donated by the NGO Greenpeace to FOIRN (Federation of Indigenous Organizations of Rio Negro), the plant was installed in a public urgent care clinic and will be inaugurated in the morning. The mayor is Clóvis Saldanha (PT), of the Tarian people.
The objective is to ensure that, in an eventual third wave of the Covid-10 pandemic, there is no lack of oxygen in the Upper and Middle Rio Negro, a population with an indigenous majority of about 100 thousand people, also covering the municipalities of Barcelos and Santa Isabel.
“It is an achievement of the indigenous movement of the Negro River in its 34 years,” says the president of FOIRN, Marivelton Barroso. "It is oxygen assistance for 23 people, for the municipalities and for the institutions that work with us for the benefit of the indigenous population." São Gabriel is accessible only by plane or boat and does not have its own ICU beds.
Translated by Kiratiana Freelon