Helping communities prepare for COVID-19

     Living in an isolated community in the Andes may sound like a perfect situation in this pandemic scenario, but in our countries it´s exactly the opposite. Road blockades and transit prohibition directly affects fresh food availability, and sooner rather than later, other essential items such as gas carafes become scarce, threatening their already rudimentary way of life. This is why some people who live in isolated communities choose to quarantine it relative´s houses in nearby cities, increasing the contagion risk.      This creates a tremendous risk, because when quarantine is over they will return to their hometowns and they can transport the virus to a communal space, where social isolation is an incomprehensible concept. To make the situation more complex, the reality of community sanitary rooms, when they exist, is that they don´t have basic resources to identify or deal with the disease.
     For all these reasons, at AGA we are in contact with the communities we work with, looking for ways to provide the basic elements they need. First, we are creating informative material with information that is easy to interpret and adapted to their reality. We will send this material to the community chiefs so they can distribute it among the residents. Second, we are working on the acquisition of basic medical supplies according to the needs of each community, chinstraps, disposable gloves, thermometers, etc.
     The people who live in these communities are friends and also our main allies in the conservation of the Andean cat and its environment. This is why, in this moment of need when the abandonment of the Government feels most, we want to show them that we really want to help them in all aspects of their lives. We are in this together, wherever we are in the world.