‘In each other’s shadows’: Behind Irish outpouring of relief for Navajo

Cassandra Begay felt a quiet sense of awe earlier this month when she and other Navajo and Hopi women watched their COVID-19 fundraiser begin to double, inexplicably, in less than a week.

The women’s relief effort, launched in mid-March, had already been quite successful, she says, raising about $1.3 million to provide food and water for the most vulnerable living in their nations’ remote communities – who have been among those most afflicted by the coronavirus pandemic across the United States.

“Then one of my teammates, she’s like, ‘Hey, guys, we’re all of the sudden receiving a flood of donations from Ireland!’” says Ms. Begay, a Navajo activist who’s been handling the team’s communications. “And so we’re, like, ‘What’s going on? Why us? Why is a whole country all of the sudden donating