URGENT: Help needed for one of the Amazon’s most important defenders
Marcos Colón writes: Maybe you don’t know Antonia Melo? But she spent her life saving all of our lives.
Melo is one of the greatest warriors for nature in the Middle Xingu. All forest protection actions in recent decades in the Altamira region bear Melo’s fingerprints. Her house was – for decades – also the home of anyone who stopped by for a cupuaçu juice or with a request for help.
Melo welcomed everyone. She was a woman-home. Until she was ripped from her own house, from her small urban forest in the middle of the city, by the Belo Monte Hydroelectric Plant. During the violent imposition of that dam, which destroyed so many lives, Melo fell ill. Her heart suffered.
She fought and she fought against the dam. And life went on. And Melo went back to being a woman-home. Now, once again, our Melo’s heart is very sick. To save the lives of those who saved so many people (human people, river people, forest people), we need to take her out of Altamira with a medical airlift to Saão Paulo for emergency surgery. This must happen soon, already, yesterday.
That’s why we are asking you to help us raise money for the airlift. It costs 151,000 reais. And we need to do it this weekend. Any amount of help allows us to become me+1+ and when we add everything up, we complete ourselves. Melo’s heart is our heart. Melo’s heart needs to keep beating.
For those in Brazil, donations can be made via the QR Code below or pix key xinguvivoadm@gmail.com
For those in other countries, please submit your donation directly to:
MUTIRAO PELA CIDADANIA
Bank: Caixa Economica Federal
SWIFT Code: CEFXBRSP
Bank branch number: 0551 OP.003
Account number: 00002522-5
IBAN: BR79 0036 0305 0055 1000 0025 225C 1
You can read more about Melo’s work organizing opposition to the Belo Monte dam and other infrastructure projects in the Amazon here.
Main image: Antonia Melo. Photo: Lilo Clareto