In just over a year, Covid-19 has killed 6,600 just in the favelas of Rio de Janeiro.* That's more people than in 166 entire nations around the world.

Despite the growing distribution of vaccines, the Delta variant, hunger, homelessness, unemployment and police violence are all on the rise.

Meanwhile, favela residents continue to organize themselves, preventing the worst outcomes in their communities. Over a year now, we at Catalytic Communities have ramped up our efforts to support favela organizers at the frontlines of Covid-19 prevention and mitigation. We dedicated our community reporting platform RioOnWatch to constant coverage as resistance efforts unfolded. We quickly developed, launched and expanded the Covid-19 In Favelas Unified Dashboard, which has become the primary reference on Covid-19 in Rio's favelas. Since March 2020 we have held over 200 live community Zoom meetings hosting some 3000 people, provided foodstuffs to those on the frontlines and distributed sanitizer in partnership with Engineers Without Borders. We have raised funds for waste pickers who conduct 90% of Brazil's recycling yet are among the hardest hit by this pandemic. We have connected favela organizers with global media outlets who covered their stories, and spoken globally about what is happening.

In addition, we have launched programs reporting on antirracism and energy justice in favelas, realized our first virtual international exchange of sustainable favela projects and the national expansion of Favela Community Land Trusts.

But continuing with all of this vital work depends on you taking action now.

On this page you can offer three kinds of assistance:

1. Immediate humanitarian support to favela households facing down hunger, through CatComm's network of trusted community parters. Favela-based organizations have been responsible for keeping the situation from getting much worse, and they need our help now to fight the latest consequence of Covid-19: widespread hunger.
2. Ongoing, strategic community organizing support to favela organizers on the frontlines, through CatComm's communications, networking, training and capacity-building programs.
3. General support to CatComm or our specific programs: RioOnWatch community reporting platform, the Sustainable Favela Network, the Favela Community Land Trust program, or the Covid-19 in Favelas Unified Dashboard.

Please know that your support is important. We have only been able to respond to favelas' urgent needs since March 2020 thanks to one-time and recurring donations from supporters like you.

But to keep it up we need existing supporters to renew their support and new donors to join them. Please take a moment today to set up a one-time or recurring donation, of any amount, and to ask friends to do the same.

We are counting on supporters like you.

—CatComm Team and Rio de Janeiro community partners

US donations are 100% tax-deductible. Click here for data privacy and payment security information.

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*Data from the Covid-19 in Favelas Unified Dashboard, a community data-sourcing initiative of Catalytic Communities. Please note that these numbers represent an underassessment: they only reflect confirmed deaths covering 70% of Rio's favela households.