Mountaineer Food Bank and Peoples Bank start matching campaign to fight food insecurity in West Virginia

Mountaineer Food Bank and Peoples Bank start matching campaign to fight food insecurity in West Virginia

LONDON, ENGLAND – MAY 05: Volunteers at Wandsworth foodbank prepare parcels for guests from their stores of donated food, toiletries and other items on May 5, 2017 in London, England. The Trussell Trust, who run the food bank, report that dependency on their service is continuing to rise, with over 1,182,000 three day emergency food supplies given to people in crisis in the past year. 436,000 of these recipients were children. (Photo by Leon Neal/Getty Images)

GASSAWAY, W.Va. — On Sept. 1, Peoples Bank and Mountaineer Food Bank initiated a matching campaign to help West Virginians struggling with food insecurity during Hunger Action Month.

Hunger Action Month recognizes Feeding America and Food Banks across the country every September, encouraging people to give their support.

The campaign was started in the wake of the upcoming merger between Premier Bank and Peoples Bank as well as to celebrate Mountaineer Food Bank’s 40th anniversary. Peoples Bank has chosen to match $20,000, raising the grand total to $40,000.

“Hunger is a hidden crisis that has only been made worse by the COVID-19 pandemic. It impacts families,

individuals, and children throughout the state, leaving the most vulnerable among us with the inability to

meet the basic need of putting food on the table,” said Mountaineer Food Bank’s CEO, Chad Morrison.

Donations can be done by visiting wwww.mountaineerfoodbank.org or by following Mountaineer Food Bank and Peoples Bank on Facebook. Every $1 donated to the Mountaineer Food Bank provides up to 10 meals.

The campaign will be ongoing until the end of September.

Support The Struggle For Life Of The Indigenous Peoples Of Brazil! No To The Anti-Indigenous Rights Bill!

Support The Struggle For Life Of The Indigenous Peoples Of Brazil! No To The Anti-Indigenous Rights Bill!

Indigenous Peoples (IP) from all over Brazil mount historic protests against anti-Indigenous rights bill. Thousands of Indigenous men and women mobilised and participated to unite and confront the genocidal policies and anti-Indigenous agenda forwarded by the Bolsonaro administration.

On August 22, in front of the buildings of the President, Congress and Supreme Court, the Articulation of the Indigenous Peoples in Brazil (APIB) began the protest camp “Struggle for Life.” The protest camp is marked as the biggest Indigenous protest in the history of Brazil against Bolsonaro’s grave human rights violations, systematic extermination of IP and massive land and environmental destruction.

The anti-Indigenous agenda, promoted by the Bolsonaro administration, puts forth a series of contentious policies which directly violates the rights of the IP to their ancestral lands, territories and resources. The highly controversial Bill 490/2007 or PL 490 will demarcate Indigenous lands and prevent IP from obtaining legal recognition over their traditional lands if they were not physically present there before October 5, 1988 — the day in which Brazil’s Constitution was enacted.

Indigenous men and women have protested against this unjust criterion, referred to as Marco Temporal. It legally removes the rights of Indigenous Peoples to their land by using an arbitrary cut-off date as a temporal precondition in land ownership. This temporal precondition violates the right of Indigenous Peoples, as the original occupants and caretakers of their lands. The Indigenous Peoples along with their history, culture, traditions, and values, precedes the creation and promulgation of the 1988 Constitution.

APIB in its urgent appeal to the United Nations and Special Rapporteurs last July 6 outlines eight major risks in the adoption of PL 490 . They cited the violation of the rights of IP to free, prior and informed consent (FPIC) in the creation of the PL 490. It highlighted specific articles in the drafted bill which allows large-scale development of energy projects, mining, roads and agricultural enterprises without consulting affected Indigenous communities.

PL 490 also alters the “no contact” policy for Indigenous Peoples living in voluntary isolation into an “avoided contact” policy that allows forced contact with uncontacted tribes. Uncontacted tribes, mostly living in the rainforests of the Amazon, are at risk for contracting contagious diseases, such as influenza, measles and tuberculosis. Forced contact could potentially wipe them out with these introduced diseases because they have not yet built immunological resistance.

We at the Indigenous Peoples Movement for Self-Determination and Liberation (IPMSDL) stand in solidarity with the Indigenous Peoples of Brazil. We salute your brave resistance against the violent and greedy Bolsonaro administration backed by power-hungry corporations. These corporations are not above employing dirty tactics, such as hiring armed goons which have forcibly displaced Indigenous communities, with the aim of making a fortune over rampant environmental destruction and at the expense of the lives of Indigenous Peoples.

The “Struggle for Life” protest camp resonates deeply with the collective aspirations of Indigenous Peoples, across the world, struggling to live their lives with their rights protected and intact, to determine their development and future free from oppression and corporate plunder, and to be part of a just and peaceful society.

Reference:

Beverly Longid, Global Coordinator

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UN Officials Express Concern for Pandemic Impacts on Indigenous Peoples

The UN Special Rapporteur on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples has expressed concern that COVID-19 recovery efforts are negatively affecting indigenous people. He also issued a report on the impact of urbanization on indigenous peoples. The Special Rapporteurs are independent experts in the UN human rights system.

On the International Day of the World’s Indigenous Peoples, marked on 9 August 2021, Special Rapporteur José Francisco Cali Tzay explained that the COVID-19 pandemic has catalyzed the promotion of mega-projects, and States have not conducted adequate consultation with affected indigenous people. To advance economic recovery, business operations have been expanded “at the expense of indigenous peoples, their lands and the environment.” Cali Tzay urged States to involve indigenous peoples in the design and implementation of recovery policies. This should be the case, he says, even in urban areas.

Indigenous peoples living in urban areas is the focus of Cali Tzay’s 2021 report, which calls for UN Member States to, among other steps:

incorporate the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples into legislation, policies and programmes in urban areas;

prohibit forced eviction and displacement, and ensure that involuntarily displaced indigenous peoples have the right to return to their traditional lands and territories;

ensure the participation of indigenous peoples living in urban areas in the planning and implementation of dedicated spaces and services that address their socioeconomic needs and to maintain and strengthen their political, legal, economic, social and cultural institutions;

recognize and support community-based and intercultural education,

ensure that all indigenous households, regardless of their tenure status or income level, are entitled to and have effective access to essential services; and

collect and publish disaggregated data on indigenous peoples living in urban areas.

UN Secretary-General António Guterres also issued a message on the International Day of the World’s Indigenous Peoples. He said recognition is growing of the importance of indigenous knowledge for solving climate and biodiversity crises and preventing the emergence of contagious diseases. He called for ensuring that indigenous knowledge is owned and shared by indigenous communities themselves. He added that free, prior and informed consent is central for indigenous peoples to exercise their own vision of development.

Guterres also observed a “deeply held resistance to recognizing and respecting the rights, dignity and freedoms of indigenous peoples.” He cited the discovery in June 2021 of a mass grave in Canada with the remains of over 200 children at a residential school for indigenous students who had been forcibly taken from their homes. The school had been run by the Catholic Church and the Government of Canada. The Secretary-General said this is “just some of the horror faced by indigenous communities at the hands of colonizers.”

In July 2021, the UN Human Rights Council released the annual report of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights on the rights of indigenous peoples. The report (A/HRC/48/30) provides an update on activities to apply the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples and other relevant international human rights treaties. It notes that the pandemic has “particularly affected indigenous peoples [and] exacerbated the marginalization of indigenous communities in many countries.” It emphasizes that indigenous peoples play a fundamental role in the conservation and transmission of traditional indigenous practices that can contribute to increased food security, health, well-being and recovery from COVID-19.

The High Commissioner’s report concludes that:

indigenous peoples continue to face barriers to accessing State legal systems as well as applying their own customs and laws;

indigenous women and girls face a disproportionately high risk of violations of their human rights including through exclusion from decision-making spaces, vulnerability to different forms of gender-based violence, the adverse impacts of the gender digital divide and the limited exercise of their land rights; and

the land rights of indigenous peoples are not adequately recognized in many countries, and barriers to land titling persist.

In April 2022, the UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues will convene its annual session on the theme of ‘Indigenous peoples, business, autonomy and the human rights principles of due diligence including free, prior and informed consent.’ Ahead of this session the Forum will hold a round of informal dialogues to support the development of guiding principles for the realization of the rights of indigenous peoples to autonomy and self-governance. The Chair of the 2021 PFII said this theme is timely given the “increasingly important role that the private sector plays in matters that affect indigenous peoples.”

The April 2021 session of the PFII focused on the theme ‘Peace, justice and strong institutions: The role of indigenous peoples in implementing Sustainable Development Goal 16.’ Discussions stressed the importance of effective access to justice for indigenous peoples through mechanisms that do not violate or threaten their rights, and the need for States to recognize that indigenous peoples’ own justice systems are pivotal to ensure their rights to maintain their autonomy, culture, and traditions.