Navajo-Dakota actor and activist Dallas Goldtooth has joined a two-phase public outreach effort to combat COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy among Indigenous people.
The For the Love of Our People campaign is an effort is led by nonprofit organizations IlluminNative, the Urban Indian Health Institute and 13 Native groups across the U.S.
The latest phase will use grant funding from the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative to focus on family and generational pride to encourage vaccinations.
Grassroots organizations in coronavirus hotspot states were each give $30,000 as part of the outreach.
A recent report by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention shows Native Americans are nearly twice as likely to test positive for the virus, three times more likely to be hospitalized, and two times more likely to die from COVID-19 than white people.
Dallas Goldtooth is a globally recognized activist and founder of the Indigenous Environmental Network. He has documented the ongoing protests against the Dakota Access pipeline on the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe's ancestral land.