Venezuelan doctor founds organization to help immigrants in Brazil

Credit: Personal Archive

By: Renato Silva – Lupa do Bem / Favela em Pauta

In March 2021, Marvis Canelonez, 40, founded the Latin American Health Union (USLA), after two years facing the difficulties imposed on an immigrant who wants to settle in Brazil.

The organization was founded at a time when the flowof refugees from the Venezuelan crisis reached high levels, but it serves people coming from Cuba, Haiti, Colombia, Peru, Venezuela and is open to any South American immigrant, according to marvis.

According to a publication by the UNODC office of the United Nations, Brazil saw the migratory flow of Venezuelans skyrocket by 900% between 2017 and 2020. The country welcomed more than 600,000 Venezuelans, currently being the fifth largest host nation of these citizens in Latin America, with 262,500 people coming from Venezuela.

It is against this backdrop and during the severity of the pandemic, especially during the oxygen crisis in Manaus, that Dr. Marvis found herself in the midst of a call to help professionals arriving in Brazil and the many of the difficulties she has faced since 2019, when she arrived in the country.

“I sold water all day in the hot sun and at night I went to work at the bar, but there they didn’t respect me. I heard a lot of bad things, so I gave up. I also learned to make Asian food, sushi, I learned to apply eyelashes, straighten, I had to do a lot,” says Marvis, a doctor graduated from the Universidad Bolivariana de Venezuela and a specialist in Hospital Management and Public Health.

By experiencing this reality firsthand, Marvis wanted to help other doctors who arrived, and thus realized the need to expand care to other professions, such as nutrition, physiotherapy, psychology, among others.

Currently, the USLA assists professionals and non-professionals in translating and obtaining documents in their home country. In addition, it provides support for entry into the Revalidation process for doctors, professional training and even direct aid with basic food baskets during the pandemic. “The association always gives strength with the aim of employability. That person must first be financially independent,” adds Marvis.

USLA numbers and status

With humanitarian assistance during the pandemic, distributing basic food baskets, diapers, medicine and home visits for medical care, the association directly assisted 300 immigrants.

In terms of support for professionals, the USLA currently serves 77 professionals, 60 of them in Manaus, of different professions and nationalities, who seek to live with some stability and financial independence, as the founder commented.

Despite already reaching significant numbers in the social and humanitarian assistance activity for this public, the association, so young, still does not have a headquarters or even specific equipment for service and storage of data generated by the activity that has already been carried out in this period.

Marvis says he works without institutional or any other support.

“I work only with my head, because I still don’t have the physical space. I’ve made a lot of requests, it’s difficult. Computing material, computer, office, I don’t have it. I keep working with my head and I need support with resources”, emphasizes the doctor, who also vents about not giving up, despite the difficulty in carrying out the work.

“It would be nice to get this support, because the work is done, even without recourse I never stopped. I think like this: why don’t I do it? Why don’t I have it on the wall, why don’t I have a computer? No! Let’s look for a way, but let’s move forward with the project!”, he declares.

How to follow and support the USLA

The Latin American Health Union is an association established in the city of Manaus (AM), and is able to receive financial and material support for the continuation of the work.

You can contact the USLA through social media, Instagram, or by email at uslauniaodasaudelatino@gmail.com.

Urgent demands and new needs

A few days after the conclusion of this text, Dr. Marvis Canelonez returned to look for the report of the Lupa do Bem portal to report a new situation.

Since she started with social assistance services for immigrants in the state of Amazonas, the doctor has been sought after by several people, even Brazilians in extreme vulnerability. With that, Marvis is now considering the possibility of starting a new movement, which will be called Saúde Radial (Radial Health), to serve mainly patients with cancer and other serious diseases who need support to get care and access to treatments.

Among the cases that draw the most attention are a man with prostate cancer and a 21-year-old who, in a quadriplegic condition, suffers from seizures and needs access to treatment. In both cases, and for many others, Dr. Marvis recalls that she badly needs financial support to help these patients.

“I receive many requests for help from Brazilians in extreme poverty, who need assistance that goes to them. But with the USLA, I cannot attend because they are not Venezuelan, so I need some support or partnership to support these people”, says the doctor.