Brazilian Charity Saving Lives Through Emergency Covid Response

Athough COVID-19 is a world-wide pandemic, recent news coverage has focused on conflict within the United States.

The world has watched civil unrest unfold between American citizens, and medical professionals. Specifically about the use of face masks in public.

There is another country in South America, however, where government leadership is also being criticized for its response during the coronavirus crisis.

Brazil's President Bolsanaro has downplayed the COVID-19 in the country, comparing it to the average flu, despite his own positive diagnoses.

And COVID-19 has now left Brazil in a state of distress, with over 2 million confirmed cases flooding the country's hospitals.

Luckily, charities such as Instituto Dana Salomão are rising to the challenge. Instituto Dana Salomão, run by Maia B. Toguchi, is a social charity dedicated to education, culture, and inter-cultural programming that promotes diversity and inclusion projects and activities in Brazil. And when Brazil declared a state of emergency, Instituto Dana Salomão was quick to revamp its mission in order to serve the needs of their people as quickly as possible.

Toguchi and her team set to work assembling basic necessities to those most in need in the form of emergency kits. Their emergency kits included items like alcohol gel, sanitizer, masks, soaps and more. In other words, items that were most essential to the survival of many Brazilian from the virus.

The team's efforts, and distribution of masks in particular, were timely, and coincided with the relaxing of mandatory masks laws in Brazil.

As masks and other items are in short supply and inaffordable to many, Jacob Maslow sent a supply of hundreds of adult and childrens masks as well as alcogel and other supplies from Israel,

As a result, Instituto Dana Salomão was able to successfully distribute over 5,000 masks and 1,000 alcohol sanitizers throughout the Federal District of Brazil.

With health organizations and media outlets around the world advising citizens to adapt to the "new normal" as a fixture in our daily routines, for at least the next 12 months, Insitituto Dana Salomão has committed to continuing their important work serving Brazil's most vulnerable.

Instituto Dana Salomão recommends that Brazilians follow international hygiene guidelines, anticipating that the country's situation will continue to worsen in the coming months.

Despite the grim outlook for Brazil, Toguchi's team at Instituto Dana Salomão will continue their requests to the government for assistance for all Brazilians during this global crisis.