Young EcoLeaders of the Brazilian Rainforest

Wonderful donors, how are you doing?

You may remember that in our last letters, we introduced you to the modules of our online course on education through art. As a matter of fact, last week we reached our last (but no least) class in this series, where we discussed Air.

Since the course structure is based on the four elements (Earth ,Water, Fire and Air), the last module followed the model of the previous ones.

With incredible performing skills, Raynan conducted the class, making our students think about Air - something that is a bit unusual for us to do. We were introduced to the idea that many people consider Air as divine breath that enables the existence of life in Planet Earth.

Air can also symbolize lightness, mobility and purification. And since we are in the forest, we can see it represented by the leaves of plants. It is also said that, in human beings, it represents the oxygenation and energizing of the bodies, in addition to our mental field and the ability to communicate.

With the help of Raynan, the students transformed the air between their hands in different objects such as a ball, a potato, a balloon, even a baby. And then they were introduced to the idea of saying the vowels in new and unexpected ways.

Afterwards, all our 40 students were making new sounds, and relaxing their bodies, letting them move with the sound that they were hearing, with their eyes closed. And the results (besides the weird poses) were a lot of stories being created only with the sounds and the students interpreting the stories.

During story time, Raynan presented the legend of the hummingbird, where there were two rival tribes living by a river and despite the war, two of the birds were in love: the boy belonged to the smaller tribe and the girl to the larger tribe.

After being discovered, the warriors separated the two of them by knocking out the boy and taking the girl back to her tribe. Because she was very young and beautiful, the elders decided to transform her into a flower as a punishment. And the boy, once he was rescued by his warriors, started searching desperately for his loved one.

He called the elders and announced that he would go to the other tribe in search of his love. They did not want him to take such a crazy step, and tried in every way to stop him. After seeing how determined he was, and how sad, they called the shamans to transform him into a hummingbird, so he could go from flower to flower, try to find his beloved.

Through this story, we can see that one should never give up on a goal, and, thanks to wonderful supporters like you, we’ve kept going through difficult times. Thank you, thank you. We couldn´t do it without you!

With lots of love from Yasmin, Raynan and their team - The Iracambi Educators

Good morning, dear donors, and we hope you are doing well?

You may remember that, thanks to wonderful supporters like you, we have been able to branch out and create a new course focusing on educating through the arts. And we can't remember when we had so much fun!

In our last letter we told you about our module on water. Water representing movement, flexibility, free flowing emotions. This time we were looking at fire. Fire transforming something into something else. The element that warms us, give us light, protects us. In nature representing a seed turning into a seedling, flowering and fruiting. In our bodies representing energy. 

We warm up by moving and feeling each part of our bodies with a constant flow of energy from our heartbeats to our restless brains. Then it's time to play, taking a simple object like a piece of cloth, transforming it into something else and passing it to another person. "This is not a piece of cloth, it's a flower." "This is not a piece of cloth, it's not a flower, it's a ball." And seeing how far the game will go! 

In the second game two players are having a conversation, one speaking her native language and the other a makeup language. They are trying to understand one another through gestures ad body language, and then exchanging roles. And in the third game one player starts telling a story, and the other player interrupts saying either "Not true" or "Please explain" or "Tell me more."  and the story teller has to adapt the story according to the command. 

Story time, and it's a Native American story of how fire as born, and then students are given their assignment. Make a collage using natural elements - leaves, flowers, bark, stones, earth. See if you can represent fire. 

And just look what beautiful images they made! 

Thank you, dear donors for making it all possible, and we can´t wait to tell you about our final module! 

with love and appreciation from Yasmin, Raynan and the Iracambi Educators 

PS We are busy planning out the year's activities. Stay tuned!