Accelerated changes to our climate due to urbanization, fossil fuel industry, etc. continues to result in devastating impacts. Unfortunately, these devastating impacts affect Indigenous peoples first. The heavy rains that have recently taken place in Oaxaca, Mexico, have destroyed many of the harvests Indigenous peoples depend on. For the pueblo San Pablo Tijaltepec, located in Oaxaca, their milpas were completely destroyed. This leaves 800 Mixtec families without the communal harvest they all depend on. The heavy rains have taken their entire livelihoods, jeopardizing their elders and single mothers the most.
In collaboration with Ñaa Ñanga Tijaltepec (an Indigenous women artisans collective), we created a mutual aid project to help their elders and single mothers—as they recover from this season's loss of their milpas.
What this continues to show us, is that Indigenous peoples are the first impacted by climate change. Unfortunately, they are the last ones helped during natural disasters whose impacts are amplified by this pandemic. They continue to face the inequities of climate change and governments—as they are often times not even given the aid to combat climate change.
Other projects embedded in this include supporting the Mixtec children with educational tools and continuing supporting them with other needs the community identifies that might not be related to the loss of the milpas.
