Stories of Resilience: Traditional Medicine, Technology, & Food Sovereignty in the time of COVID-19
DGM Global cannot guarantee the accuracy of Google translations. In case of discrepancies, the original language takes precedence.
Contributed by: DGM Indonesia, DGM Ghana, DGM DRC, DGM Brazil, and DGM NSC Members in Peru and Burkina Faso.
Editor’s note: In honor of International Day of the World’s Indigenous People on August 9, we will be sharing a series of three DGM blogs, highlighting experiences from the Dedicated Grant Mechanism for Indigenous Peoples and Local Communities (DGM). Learn the critical role indigenous peoples and local communities play in ensuring ecosystems are managed sustainably.
When coronavirus began spreading across countries and continents in March 2020, many in western societies ravaged supermarkets, at times violently, to purchase massive amounts of hand sanitizer, masks, flour, and rice, amongst other essentials, at quantities beyond their need. This led price hikes and empty shelves to become the norm. As stores emptied in the US, Indigenous Peoples in Indonesia began community initiatives to cope with food shortages, developing a plan to supply neighboring communities during the crisis and conducting community needs assessments, among other community efforts. While the pandemic has unveiled the prevailing greed that exists in some parts of the world it has also reinforced the important lessons to be learned from Indigenous Peoples’ relationship with and dependence on nature, and their community-oriented process in addressing issues that affect their well-being.
Today on International Day of the World’s Indigenous Peoples and everyday, we honor Indigenous Peoples globally and take a stand for indigenous rights and commit to continue working tirelessly towards narrowing the gaps of inequality and recognizing Indigenous Peoples’ contributions to climate action and biodiversity protection. Today, we highlight the innovative ways Indigenous Peoples and Local Communities continue demonstrating resilience and strength in the face of the myriad of crises brought on by COVID-19 while confronting grave threats to their survival.
Read below for stories of IPLC resilience amid the pandemic in Indonesia, Brazil, Ghana, and the Democratic Republic of Congo.
“This pandemic has led us to reflect on how fragile we are as human beings and on the importance of valuing life as a treasure we all have. Especially so, for Indigenous Peoples who for millennia have faced many adversities, diseases and everything that involves living in the forest. This lifestyle has also made them strong using ancestral knowledge to defeat many diseases and safeguard their lives. This ancestral knowledge has helped them face great difficulties, but at the same time it has also helped them preserve because where they live in the forest is where the remedies can be found to guarantee their survival and treat many diseases.”
Indonesia: Community-led initiatives ensure food sovereignty
In Indonesia, many communities working with the DGM in Sumatra, Java, East Java, and Sumba Island have taken the initiative to distribute food, conduct needs assessments, track coronavirus cases, and create quarantine centers and awareness campaigns. Efforts include increasing crop production to supply indigenous communities experiencing food shortages due to the long dry season coupled with the impact of COVID-19 and creating an online portal to track and monitor cases. Community cooperation has been critical in maintaining resilience and is evident in the stories DGM Indonesia’s NSC members have generously provided, here.
“In Sumba island, volunteers and NGO’s are promoting community cooperation (gotong royong) to cope with the food crisis by planting ten food crops consisting of a minimum of ten clumps plus herbal plants e.g., ginger, turmeric, ginger, lemongrass, and others. Seedlings are collected from communities and distributed back to community members. In Central Sumba this cooperation has begun showing results, Anajiak and Waimanu villages have adopted this model with 32 households preparing three hectares of land (house front and back yards, gardens) for food crops and herbal plants with water-saving and low-emission cultivation techniques.”
Ghana: Using digital tools to support local communities’ resilience to climate change and COVID-19
COVID-19 has led local communities in Ghana to find innovative ways to adapt to the new “normal”. An example of this is the use of an Interactive Voice Response (IVR) tool to facilitate communication and continued engagement. With 156 individual DGM grant recipients implementing activities, the COVID-19 outbreak necessitated the use of IVR providing pre-recorded messages in Twi, a common local dialect, to project implementers. IVR provides project activity guidance, and messages on how to prevent the spread of the virus in local communities without the need for in-person contact.
“Initially, we were afraid that the pandemic would completely stall our activities because of all the restrictions it came with. However, we are now able to receive information through phone calls and messages to guide our practices,” says Patricia Tandoh, a cocoa farmer in Bodi in the Western North region.
“For us, this has demonstrated the commitment of the project to provide continuous support to help us implement sustainable climate-smart initiatives that would protect our livelihoods from the impacts of climate change.”
DGM Ghana’s NEA has also developed a COVID-19 operational guide for all projects to ensure that basic hygiene and safety measures are strictly adhered to during all field operations.
DGM Ghana NEA member Edward Kyere calls attention to newly sprouting Climate Smart Cocoa pods. In Ghana, project implementation continues despite the pandemic, whilst project implementers take necessary health and safety precautions. Photo Credit: DGM Ghana
In Kunkumso in the Western North region of Ghana, the Kunkumso Farmers' Association, a community-based organization, is engaging in tree planting activities to protect their community river and improve the diversity and functionality of the river's ecosystem. With DGM Ghana’s support over 3,600 trees have been planed on an eight-acre stretch along the 'Nsuo Abena' river. Photo Credit: DGM Ghana
Brazil: Traditional medicine and healing to prevent COVID-19
In the Cerrado biome of Brazil, DGM Global Steering Committee member and plant medicine specialist Lucely Pio has increased her hours as a doctor for her community and expanded on the quantity of natural medicines and remedies she creates so as to boost her community’s overall immunity, treat the ill, and share the benefits and healing properties of plants across neighboring communities and networks.
The red angico tree is a medicinal plant found in the Cerrado used for strengthening lungs and is one of the main plants that is used to make medicinal syrups. It also helps improve immunity and clear respiratory airways. Lucely Pio shared a little bit about the specific trees in her landscape with us:
Video Translation:
“This is a jatobá tree. In Brazil we have two jatobá species in the field and forests, this one is from the field. We use this plant in its entirety. We use the bark to make syrups to improve immunity and treat the flu. The plant’s wine is extracted to treat anemia and the fruit is used to make flour for culinary purposes. The flour has a vast quantity of vitamins, proteins, and other nutrients to enhance immunity. This particular jatobá is too young to extract from but all of these health benefits can be found in a jatobá tree that has further ripened.
The copaiba tree is also found in the Cerrado and is the tree that is most often used to strengthen immunity and as an anti-inflammatory. This is an adult copaiba tree that we have been extracting oil from for four years. The copaiba oil can be used in basil, marjoram or mint tea.”
“For us in Brazil, the Cerrado symbolizes life, strength, faith, and hope. It is our living pharmacy and where we get our medicine, and in addition sustains us through the provision of fruit.” – Lucely Pio, DGM Brazil NSC President .
DRC: The importance of culturally and linguistically relevant COVID-19 information
In DRC, indigenous communities are being harshly impacted by COVID-19 for varying reasons such as the lack of culturally and linguistically appropriate messaging regarding the virus. Not being accurately informed of the virus makes it ever more challenging to know how to prevent it. More importantly, COVID-19 prevention information does not take into consideration the realities on the ground, such as limited access to water and protective equipment. Many indigenous communities are located in very arid regions of the country where water sources are only found at great distances from their homes.
Additionally, the lack of adequate health infrastructure and data on infected Indigenous Peoples makes the virus furthermore difficult to control. This reality coupled with the conception of an external deadly illness entering indigenous communities is triggering for Indigenous Peoples that are immediately reminded of the many diseases that have historically entered their communities. Indigenous Peoples in the DRC are taking measures into their own hands to ensure their communities’ wellbeing through traditional medicine and community-led actions.
“We are the people of the forest and we depend on it. This is why we have thought to use plants as preventive medicine. Every night, my family and I boil different plants (heating to 100 degrees Celsius) and then cover ourselves with this great steam. This saved us from the flu, malaria, etc.” – Charles Nakashane in the Mambasa Territory.
"Let's act now to prevent and fight against the spread of coronavirus among the Indigenous Pygmy Peoples or else these peoples will be erased from the ethno-tribal map of the DRC.” - Kapupu Diwa, President of the DGM National Steering Committee
“I would like to say to the inhabitants of the earth that the solutions to this [virus] is found in the biodiversity in nature which has given us everything so far and which unfortunately we do not recognize enough. Indigenous peoples and local communities have understood this and since the dawn of time they have invested in preserving our forests and savannas from which they derive their well-being. These ecosystems are open-air hospitals and pharmaceutical laboratories available to humans to fight COVID-19 and all other diseases.””
Meet Sarah Ewudzi, a cocoa farmer in Asantekrom in the Western North region of Ghana. Sarah has intercropped 14 kilograms of maize seeds and 950 plantain suckers she received from DGM Ghana on her cocoa farm and has harvested corn worth over GHC 400 (USD$ 69) . The plantain and maize plants are serving as temporary shade for the young cocoa seedlings she has planted on her two and a half-acre land.
Well before the arrival of COVID-19, Indigenous Peoples have had to live under constant threats to their existence. Over the last 500 years, they have had to navigate land theft, settler-colonial violence, extractive industries, and a climate crisis. Despite the exceptionally difficult context, they have once again demonstrated their capacity to adapt in spite of adversity by taking the lead in preventing the spread of coronavirus in their communities by closing borders, imposing curfews, tracking cases, conducting needs assessments, making face masks and hand sanitizers, and disseminating COVID-19 information in indigenous languages. These initiatives are a reflection of their resilience, community oriented process, ancestral knowledge, and relationship with nature. All of which deserve recognition, sustained support, and respect.
August 9th is not only a day to commemorate the world’s Indigenous Peoples, it is also a reminder that the world has much to learn from Indigenous Peoples and that the work to support and collaborate with IPLCs must continue every single day.