Sheltering Displaced Ngäbe-Buglé Families
By Geoparadise Inc
U.S. donations are 100% tax-deductible.
The situation:
In July 2021 our team received a call for urgent help from the Panamanian Ngabe-Buglé indigenous people. In this case of another serious human rights violation many families, including elders and kids, have been forcibly moved from their native land, left homeless, shot with rubber bullets and some even passed due to complications and lack of proper medical attention following the shootings.
So why are these natives being forced from their land and treated so violently?
We tried to get answers to the same question and still struggle to accept the heartbreaking truth behind it all. Living and farming peacefully in their indigenous comarca/territory close to Chiriqui, the Ngäbe Bugle tribe has been inhabiting the valley of the Tabasara river for many generations. This area presents a sensitive and vulnerable ecosystem on which their very lives and sustenance depend upon. Besides that, this valley holds important spiritual and historical significance and is their ceremonial site, where sacred petroglyphs were chiselled by ancestors into boulders midstream the river. This river, and this valley which is their home, have now been flooded by the hydroelectric dam in another catastrophic and sad case of greenwashing.
They are one of many indigenous peoples, who are facing serious land issues and find themselves in a very complicated legal situation. All of this has resulted in Ngabes being forcibly removed from their ancestral land. Currently, they are homeless and with our organisation help, they have been attempting to find ways to set up a temporary shelter next to the loud and dusty Pan-American Highway. The living conditions there are dehumanising, but it is all they've got until their land dispute is resolved, which sadly doesn’t seem very hopeful.
Long story short(er), the Barro Blanco dam project has been a hot topic that has been causing indigenous activists to protest practically ever since the first mentions of a hydroelectric dam even began, back in the 1980s. There is a whole heap of articles and videos on this topic available online if you are curious to explore this matter more in-depth.
Various sources claim that once the dam is completed, the Tabasara River will be converted from a functioning source of water and food into a stagnant lake ecosystem. Needless to say, this is already happening as we speak.
Soy Tribu joined us to document the situation and has shared some of his pictures with us. Keep tuned for his video report coming out soon, featuring an impactful interview with the communities abuela.
Please Join Us On Our Mission
The situation for these people is very dire and we need to act quickly to assist them. As a public charity, our main focus is on providing humanitarian relief and support.
Their needs are many and our resources limited, so we are currently fundraising to be able to provide more temporary shelters/homes, facilities and other necessities for these struggling indigenous families. With December being just around the corner, we are focused on collecting enough funds to finance this endeavour and are seeking donations for much-needed building supplies.
Geoparadise is donating the labour and as much building materials as we have available to build structures, but there are still many items that need to be purchased (e.g. plywood, screws, petrol, food, blankets, tarps, transport rentals expenses, sanitary products, etc. ).
Any small amount you can spare will go a long way. If you are not able to donate please share the campaign with your networks! Every little bit helps.
What has been done so far to help?
After our initial fundraising campaign, in which we raised $861 of our initial $1,000 goal, our team had a trip to the province in mid-September. With those public donations and our materials, we‘ve built a wooden hut with a rainwater collection system and bunk beds for lots of kids and their families. We also built tables with benches and, working together with the community, we helped to construct a concrete bridge (which they named "Bean" after one of our crew members).
In mid-November, our crew came back from its second trip from the Ngäbes temporary settlement and is actively preparing for the next, scheduled for December. This time we donated a bunch of building materials from our annual event Tribal Gathering to provide temporary shelter, a toilet and communal kitchen space for 145 people who were living rough on the muddy ground, under tarps with heavy tropical rain.
We also built 2 toilets for Las Mesitas school, in the area where we worked during our previous trip and we provided tarps, sleeping mats, clothes, food and other basic supplies to the affected families in Barro Blanco. Some of these were received from well-meaning neighbors and supporters of our endeavors, in solidarity with the indigenous communities.
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A huge thanks to all our loyal global family, who has been supporting us in our efforts to secure better living conditions for the indigenous peoples of Latin America over this and the past year! We couldn't do it without your help!