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Rights Action
March 22, 2020
*******
 
 
Supporting communities in Honduras & Guatemala; forced migrants & refugees
Rights Action understands that some communities in the U.S. and Canada are suffering increased economic hardship and vulnerability due to COVID-19, and to the sanitary and isolation control measures. We support all efforts in the public and private sectors (with particular emphasis on exploited, marginalized communities) to implement rational preventative measures related to social isolation and the provision of emergency health and financial support.
 
Why this funding appeal
In an unjust, unequal global human order, inside nations and between rich and exploited nations, many are more vulnerable than others. While the COVID-19 virus is infecting people from ‘all walks of life’, it is infecting, harming and killing more people who live day to day, year to year, in vulnerable conditions of exploitation and poverty, discrimination and abandonment.
 
We encourage folks (in a position to do so) to support Rights Action’s COVID response work. We are concerned by now-even-more precarious living conditions of partner communities in Honduras and Guatemala – all endemically impoverished to begin with, a majority being Indigenous.
 
We are concerned by the precarious conditions of thousands of Guatemalans and Hondurans forced to flee into exile over the past few years by the violence, corruption and exploitation of their military-backed governments. Many have been ‘criminalized’; many are illegally detained in unsanitary, crowded detention centers, jails and ad hoc camps in Mexico and the U.S.
 
 
It bears repetition that the Honduran and Guatemalan regimes are fully supported by the U.S. and Canadian governments, and by a multitude of global companies and investors taking advantage of the conditions of corruption and exploitation –let alone violence– to operate mines and hydro-electric dams, to produce ‘for-export’ coffee, sugarcane, African palm, bananas and pineapples, to operate garment ‘sweatshop’ factories and tourism businesses.
 
 
Canada, U.S. and the so-called international community are happy to do business-as-usual with these regimes that have little interest, let alone capacity, to prioritize and support their most vulnerable, exploited communities.
 
While hoping and preparing for the best, Rights Action is fearing the worst in terms of possible outbreaks in either or both countries.
 
Who we are prioritizing
Rights Action is sending COVID-19 response funds to community groups we have funded and worked with for many years, including people involved in land, human rights and environmental defense struggles related to mining and hydro-electric dam projects, tourism, and the ‘for export’ production of sugar cane and African palm.
 
Initial grants have been sent to:
  • Mayan Q’eqchi’ partners in the mining/ dams/ African palm harmed communities of eastern Guatemala.
  • Indigenous Garifuna partners in the tourism/ African palm/ narco-trafficking harmed communities of Honduras’ north coast.
  • Indigenous and non-Indigenous individuals forced to flee community defense struggles that Rights Action supports in Honduras and Guatemala, who are now in precarious refugee conditions in the U.S. or along the U.S.-Mexican border.
Community organizations are using funds to:
  • Educate about seriousness of COVID pandemic, particularly as government and media information sources are of little to no use for poor majority.
  • Educate about primary importance of social isolation and cleaning hands and living spaces with soap, as much as possible.
  • Monitor, and limit (as possible) the coming and going of people into communities.
  • With maximum sanitary precaution, carry out home visits to monitor community members’ health.
  • Where possible, establish community locations to isolate and support community members suspected of contracting COVID.
  • Prioritize education and support for the elderly.
  • Educate about strengthening immune systems through the use of herbal teas grown and used locally for generations.
Urgent needs:
  • Personal health safety equipment for community members leading community support measures.
  • Provision of basic foods for community members running short of survival foods.
  • Provision of potable water (boiled if necessary) and soap.
As donations and grants are received by Rights Action, we will continue to transfer funds (bank-to-bank wires, Western Union, Money Gram) to our partner groups and individuals.
 
***
 
The best solution to COVID-19, as with so many injustices, violence and inequalities plaguing the lives of so many humans, is people, communities and governments working together and collaborating to create societies and a global community based on mutual well-being and fundamental equality inside and between nations.
 
This is always the case. This is what Rights Action, and our partner groups in Guatemala and Honduras, have long been working for.

Grahame Russell, director Rights Action
grahame@rightsaction.org

 
*** / ***

Tax-Deductible Donations (Canada & U.S.)
To support the COVID-19 response work of our partner groups in Honduras and Guatemala, make check to "Rights Action" and mail to:
  • U.S.:  Box 50887, Washington DC, 20091-0887
  • Canada:  (Box 552) 351 Queen St. E, Toronto ON, M5A-1T8
Credit-Card Donations: http://rightsaction.org/donate/
Donations of securities in Canada and the U.S.? Write to: info@rightsaction.org
Bank-to-bank transfers? Write to: info@rightsaction.org

 
Please share this information widely
More information: info@rightsaction.org, www.rightsaction.org
Subscribe to e-Newsletter: www.rightsaction.org
Facebook: www.facebook.com/RightsAction.org
Twitter: @RightsAction
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/rightsaction/
Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/user/rightsaction

 
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Rights Action
March 18, 2020
*******
 
The best solution to COVID-19 is people, communities and governments working and collaborating together, based on solidarity and cooperation, mutual well-being and fundamental equality inside and between nations
 
Dear friends,

I trust this message finds you-all healthy, sanitized and (somewhat) isolated socially. I hope you are living in communities taking appropriate measures to prevent the spread of the COVID-19 virus, and support people who have contracted it.
 
Rights Action is expecting and asking for more caution and protective/sanitary measures, not fewer. It is better to be too worried, and take extra protective/sanitary measures, than not enough.
 
For the immediate future, Rights Action cancelled a number of trips south (leading delegations; taking journalists; visiting partner groups) and two educational-activism trips north for community defender partners of ours.
 
Rights Action continues with our work, monitoring how COVID-19 plays itself out in the U.S., Canada and ‘south of the border’, particularly in Honduras and Guatemala. Unjustly, but quite predictably, a disproportionate percentage of COVID-19 victims will be amidst the poorer, exploited sectors of our overlapping human communities, from the local to global levels.
 
We are particularly concerned about the conditions of hundreds of thousands of Hondurans and Guatemalans who were forced to flee their countries by violence and poverty, corruption and desperation kept in place by repressive U.S. and Canadian-supported regimes, people who are now ‘criminalized’, many of whom are illegally held in unsanitary detention centers, jails and crowded forced migrant camps in Mexico and the U.S.
 
To the best of our financial ability, Rights Action will increase small general support grants to long-term community defender partner groups in Guatemala and Honduras so that they may take steps in their homes and communities to socially isolate, to provide a minimal of soap and water that can be boiled, and to support any person who contracts the virus.
 
We encourage folks, who are in a position to do so, to continue funding our work with on-line donations or bank-to-bank transfers. We encourage folks not to send checks, unless this is your only option. Our part-time colleagues in Toronto and Washington DC will visit our PO boxes on a regular basis, as long as no postal service restrictions are put in place, and respecting recommendations for social distancing that may limit this as well.
 
The best solution to COVID-19, as with so many injustices, violence and inequalities plaguing the lives of so many humans, is people, communities and governments working and collaborating together, based on solidarity and cooperation, mutual well-being and fundamental equality inside and between nations.
 
This is always the case. This is what Rights Action, and our partner groups in Guatemala and Honduras, have long been working for.
 
Thank-you. Best wishes to all, near and far.

Grahame Russell, director Rights Action

 
*** / ***
 
Tax-Deductible Donations (Canada & U.S.)
To support land, human rights and environmental defender groups in Honduras and Guatemala, make check to "Rights Action" and mail to:
  • U.S.:  Box 50887, Washington DC, 20091-0887
  • Canada:  (Box 552) 351 Queen St. E, Toronto ON, M5A-1T8
Credit-Card Donations: http://rightsaction.org/donate/
Donations of securities in Canada and the U.S.? Write to: info@rightsaction.org
 
Please share this information widely
More information: info@rightsaction.org, www.rightsaction.org
Subscribe to e-Newsletter: www.rightsaction.org
Facebook: www.facebook.com/RightsAction.org
Twitter: @RightsAction
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/rightsaction/
Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/user/rightsaction

 
 
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Rights Action
March 22, 2020
*******
 
COVID-19: Some are more vulnerable than others


Supporting communities in Honduras & Guatemala; forced migrants & refugees

Rights Action understands that some communities in the U.S. and Canada are suffering increased economic hardship and vulnerability due to COVID-19, and to the sanitary and isolation control measures. We support all efforts in the public and private sectors (with particular emphasis on exploited, marginalized communities) to implement rational preventative measures related to social isolation and the provision of emergency health and financial support.
 
Why this funding appeal
In an unjust, unequal global human order, inside nations and between rich and exploited nations, many are more vulnerable than others. While the COVID-19 virus is infecting people from ‘all walks of life’, it is infecting, harming and killing more people who live day to day, year to year, in vulnerable conditions of exploitation and poverty, discrimination and abandonment.
 
We encourage folks (in a position to do so) to support Rights Action’s COVID response work. We are concerned by now-even-more precarious living conditions of partner communities in Honduras and Guatemala – all endemically impoverished to begin with, a majority being Indigenous.
 
We are concerned by the precarious conditions of thousands of Guatemalans and Hondurans forced to flee into exile over the past few years by the violence, corruption and exploitation of their military-backed governments. Many have been ‘criminalized’; many are illegally detained in unsanitary, crowded detention centers, jails and ad hoc camps in Mexico and the U.S.
 

 
It bears repetition that the Honduran and Guatemalan regimes are fully supported by the U.S. and Canadian governments, and by a multitude of global companies and investors taking advantage of the conditions of corruption and exploitation –let alone violence– to operate mines and hydro-electric dams, to produce ‘for-export’ coffee, sugarcane, African palm, bananas and pineapples, to operate garment ‘sweatshop’ factories and tourism businesses.
 

 
Canada, U.S. and the so-called international community are happy to do business-as-usual with these regimes that have little interest, let alone capacity, to prioritize and support their most vulnerable, exploited communities.
 
While hoping and preparing for the best, Rights Action is fearing the worst in terms of possible outbreaks in either or both countries.
 
Who we are prioritizing
Rights Action is sending COVID-19 response funds to community groups we have funded and worked with for many years, including people involved in land, human rights and environmental defense struggles related to mining and hydro-electric dam projects, tourism, and the ‘for export’ production of sugar cane and African palm.
 
Initial grants have been sent to:
  • Mayan Q’eqchi’ partners in the mining/ dams/ African palm harmed communities of eastern Guatemala.
  • Indigenous Garifuna partners in the tourism/ African palm/ narco-trafficking harmed communities of Honduras’ north coast.
  • Indigenous and non-Indigenous individuals forced to flee community defense struggles that Rights Action supports in Honduras and Guatemala, who are now in precarious refugee conditions in the U.S. or along the U.S.-Mexican border.
 
Community organizations are using funds to:
  • Educate about seriousness of COVID pandemic, particularly as government and media information sources are of little to no use for poor majority.
  • Educate about primary importance of social isolation and cleaning hands and living spaces with soap, as much as possible.
  • Monitor, and limit (as possible) the coming and going of people into communities.
  • With maximum sanitary precaution, carry out home visits to monitor community members’ health.
  • Where possible, establish community locations to isolate and support community members suspected of contracting COVID.
  • Prioritize education and support for the elderly.
  • Educate about strengthening immune systems through the use of herbal teas grown and used locally for generations.
 
Urgent needs:
  • Personal health safety equipment for community members leading community support measures.
  • Provision of basic foods for community members running short of survival foods.
  • Provision of potable water (boiled if necessary) and soap.
 
As donations and grants are received by Rights Action, we will continue to transfer funds (bank-to-bank wires, Western Union, Money Gram) to our partner groups and individuals.
 
***
 
The best solution to COVID-19, as with so many injustices, violence and inequalities plaguing the lives of so many humans, is people, communities and governments working together and collaborating to create societies and a global community based on mutual well-being and fundamental equality inside and between nations.
 
This is always the case. This is what Rights Action, and our partner groups in Guatemala and Honduras, have long been working for.

Grahame Russell, director Rights Action
grahame@rightsaction.org
 
*** / ***
 
Tax-Deductible Donations (Canada & U.S.)
To support the COVID-19 response work of our partner groups in Honduras and Guatemala, make check to "Rights Action" and mail to:
  • U.S.:  Box 50887, Washington DC, 20091-0887
  • Canada:  (Box 552) 351 Queen St. E, Toronto ON, M5A-1T8
Credit-Card Donations: http://rightsaction.org/donate/
Donations of securities in Canada and the U.S.? Write to: info@rightsaction.org
Bank-to-bank transfers? Write to: info@rightsaction.org
 
Please share this information widely
More information: info@rightsaction.org, www.rightsaction.org
Subscribe to e-Newsletter: www.rightsaction.org
Facebook: www.facebook.com/RightsAction.org
Twitter: @RightsAction
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/rightsaction/
Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/user/rightsaction
 
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