No one should die of malaria today

We write this report in the lengthening shadow of the June 24th, 2026 earthquakes that have taken so much from so many in Venezuela. We’ll come back to how you might respond to them, below.

First though, we need to tell you about the community and cultural resilience made possible by this project’s response to the disaster that malaria brought in 2018 to the mining-affected Amazonian Indigenous communities with whom we work. For example, the final copies of Jotï-language, community-illustrated primers were delivered last month. They arrived to schools in the most remote communities, like those along Amazonian river tributaries only navigable in the rainy season. You will see that we had a hard time choosing among the many images they sent! More medicines the project purchased also arrived to clinics, carried by community members walking days from the nearest town with supplies.

In these remote communities, the work of creation—here, literally recording the Jotï stories of creation—has continued. The community is writing and illustrating a second text in Jotï language. Its constituent stories are recorded and transcribed in Jotï, and also translated from Jotï to Spanish by community members like Lucas, Abel, Elisa, and Gerardo, with accompanying drawings by talented women and men, young and old. The present project complements the primer with more complex stories, like the recent recording and transcription of four detailed myths in Jotï language and translation into Spanish of two mythological narratives. The stories are transcribed using the consensus alphabet the Jotï decided on in several meetings attended by at least 100 representatives from around 10 communities. The alphabet was first used in the primer, pictured here, in part because it can be typed on laptops with standard keyboard layouts, like the ones donated by this project. This next volume in preparation builds the body of work available to students in local schools that transmits language and culture.

Long-lasting insecticidal mosquito nets, last distributed to communities in 2022, are due—or overdue—to be replaced this summer, to continue to protect the good health that enables resilience and innovation. The mosquito nets are provided by the Global Fund and managed by UNDP and the Venezuelan Health Ministry. We started the request for a new set of 1500 mosquito nets about five weeks ago, and recently it was approved that we deliver them to Jotï and Eñepa communities. Changes in government in Venezuela brought a longtime collaborator and project advocate back into her role in the Ministry of Health. Speaking to her in mid-June, project leaders were pleased to learn that mosquito nets had already been shipped out of the capitol, and positioned for distribution in Ciudad Bolivar, closer to the Amazonian Indigenous communities they are destined to serve. The project also supported patient and caregiver costs for 12 different individual medical emergencies over the last few months, and in June, purchased medicines and supplies to complement the nets.

On the morning of June 24th, wearing my project administrator hat, I went into our local bank to transfer funds for two flights by the bush pilots we’ve collaborated with for years now. The flights are slated to transport project leaders to deliver those nets, medications and supplies, plus more equipment and supplies for public health, environmental and educational data collection and resource creation. Project leaders have already requested the proper permits to deliver the nets in these two bush plane flights. 

On the evening of June 24th, the project leaders were at their local university near  Caracas when the earthquakes struck. Their particular location, and their habit of keeping phones charged against a backdrop of intermittent power availability, meant that they were able to let me know within hours that they were physically unharmed. However, the devastation touched everyone. Missing, wounded and fatalities are overwhelmingly high. 

We immediately directed a small portion of project funds toward purchases of medical supplies, and very much needed cleaning items for people near hem who were the most seriously affected and displaced by the quake. The project leaders also donated articles of clothing in good condition. They wrote to me again on June 27th, “My dear friend, it has been incredibly hard; it’s impossible not to be deeply moved. There have been many aftershocks just now”. Today, July 9th, the aftershocks numbered over 1,000. 

What we know about disasters comes from our experience with the malaria epidemic that drove the founding of this project. It comes from Global Diversity Foundation’s experience directing international support to respond rapidly to the Moroccan High Atlas quake in September 2023, and then continue to build resilience in hard-hit rural areas even today. It stems from our collective experience with the Covid pandemic, including with a rural free health clinic in the U.S. Northeast whose longstanding flu vaccine outreach program had built the trust and know-how that let them pivot to deliver the Covid vaccine to area farmworkers. It also accords with GlobalGiving’s philosophy: the work to respond to disaster is best carried out by resourcing vetted local organizations already situated in the affected context. They have built the trust, local knowledge and networks, and have the procedures and protocols they can adapt and apply to meet emergent needs.

So, if you wish to contribute to earthquake relief efforts, HAWAPO project leaders recommend supporting Proyecto Mayu. It is co-led by Oscar, the doctor who is our longtime collaborator: he volunteers as the Indigenous health centers’ trusted medical advisor and is in charge of the onchocercosis elimination program in Venezuela. He has been attending to Jotï communities for a decade, and In fact, he is entering Kayama tomorrow! Oscar and his colleagues lead young medical professionals to deliver rural healthcare in hard-to-access locations across Venezuela. That means they already have the know-how, infrastructure, and, in some locations, existing trust to mobilize personnel and deliver necessary care in difficult circumstances. Project Mayu has a GlobalGiving presence here: https://www.globalgiving.org/projects/bringing-healthcare-to-venezuelas-remote-regions/ . You can contact us to learn other ways to give.

Meanwhile, we currently believe that this project’s flights to communities and the visits of project leaders will be able to go forward. While the focus of the Venezuelan state and the world must rightly be on earthquake relief, we will continue to make sure that the essential work of community health and wellbeing, cultural knowledge creation and transmission in these Indigenous Amazonian communities is supplied. Thank you for helping us to do so.

Indigenous-led efforts to control malaria continue effectively in the multiple Venezuelan Amazonian communities where you have helped us to work. Communities utilize a combination of prevention, treatment, and control strategies--think nets, portable malakits, and elimination of standing water near homes, for example.

Treatment strategies depend on community health nurses, microscopists and clinics. They also depend on community-based caregivers, individuals who take charge of monitoring, giving out diagnostic tests and dispensing medication to treat malaria in each groups often far-flung, tiny settlements. Some of these are nestled at multiple day's remove from the clinic, along rivers or through the forest.

Once a case of malaria is diagnosed, and the strain is identified, community health nurses and community caregivers need to give patients the right dosage of the powerful medications used to combat the disease. Timely, correct treatment improves patient outcomes, alleviates suffering and, importantly, limits the period during which the infected patient can spread malaria to others.

Today, we're sharing about a different sort of innovation to improve malaria treatment, created based on data collected by community members and shared via the new community internet link. Then, one of the project leaders analyzed the data and synthesized it into medication dosing charts, like the ones families receive from their pediatrician's office.

The project leader reports as follows:

"Between January and May of 2026, community members recorded anthropometric data (weight and height/age group/sex) was recorded for approximately 200 individuals of the Jotï population at Kayamá (see photos 1 & 2). The immediate objective of this data set was to derive the average weight by age/sex for the Jotï communities participating in the community-based project of malaria prevention/treatment/control.

The average weights were figured from the data set by regression analysis for sub-adults (individuals below 20 years of age) and by calculation of means for adults per demographic cohort (20-24, 25-29, 30-34, 35-39, 40-44, 45-49, 50-54, 55+ age groups). Based on the strong correlations found from these results, a new bilingual Jo-Spanish table was prepared showing the proper doses of malaria medication according to the sex and age of the patient (see table in two parts, attached as images 6 & 7, below). This table will be printed, copied, laminated, and distributed to the different communities participating in the Hawapo project during the next field trip to the field (July-August 2026).

This guide will help the community-based caregivers to measure and administer the proper dosage to their patients without the need to actually weigh the person. In many of the scattered and isolated settlements, there are in fact no scales available. The table also shows the dosage given for either the medicine Artemether-Lumefantrine or Chloroquine and Primaquine medicines, since availability of particular medicines may vary." (Different medications, when available, are preferentially used to treat Plasmodium falciparum, Plasmodium vivax, or mixed strain malarial infections.)

We're excited by this new applied public health resource, made possible by the Jotï community's effective organization, data gathering, and targeted use of their internet connection. It was complemented, this past week, by the delivery of additional medicines and medical supplies (see photos). Purchased with project funds, they were hand-carried to Kayama by community members making the week-long journey home on foot. It takes a village! (See photos 3 & 4.)

Thanks to each of you for all you do to make this work possible, as well as the work for health and wellbeing in your own communities.