Young EcoLeaders of the Brazilian Rainforest

Dear donors and friends,

First of all, we hope you are doing well, and would like to send you a shoutout for supporting our education program. We really appreciate your donations, and here is a letter from the field to show you how we are putting them to work.

Let's start with a quick report on the success of one of the initiatives developed by a group of Iracambi Environmental Leaders. Their initiative is connected with trash pickers.  Allow us to explain.

A little background. There are an estimated 400,000 - 800,000 trash pickers in Brazil – which is currently number four on the list of countries that generate the most trash. The trash pickers are responsible for 90% of the recycling efforts in the country, and their work helps protect the urban environment, reduces emissions from open landfills, saves money and generates employment.

Trash pickers are often discriminated against, and live and work in unhealthy conditions. Yet in different parts of the country, state and municipal governments are working to improve working conditions, ensure access to protective equipment, provide storage facilities, and help them negotiate fair rates for their products.

In this context, one of the groups of Iracambi Environmental Leaders is working with local government to improve conditions for the trash pickers of the municipality of Piraquara, a satellite town in the district of Curitiba. Curitiba is known for having one of the most enlightened city governments in the country, including a widely respected program whereby the city donates one kilo of fresh fruits and vegetables for every four kilos of recyclables they receive from community members.

The Iracambi Environmental Leaders report that their project is taking great strides in improving conditions and raising incomes for these essential workers. They are also working on a program of social media posts and environmental education to encourage the citizens of Piraquara to deliver the recyclables in good condition.

So now we´ve shared the good news from Piraquara, here's a quick headsup on our next plans. We’ll be starting our next course in around ten days from now, and we'll be using some of the testimonials from our graduates to encourage even more people to sign up. Then in August we'll hold a course for teachers, parents and other interested people on working with school age kids to create a first cohort of Junior Environmental Leaders. The following month we're planning a three or four-day workshop for the graduates of all our courses, with the objective of bringing together as many of them as possible, and creating a network of activists across the country.

So you can see that there's a lot going on,  and if any of you, dear donors, are interested in helping us develop these courses, we'd be delighted to hear from you! Just shoot us a message on cursos@iracambi.com and we´ll get back to you as soon as we can.

In the meantime, thank you once again for your amazing support!

With love and appreciation from Yasmin and the Iracambi Educators

Dear donors and partners,

We hope you are doing well and staying healthy?

You´ll be happy to hear that we have just completed another course for environmental leaders online and once again it went really well!

As in previous courses, we put the material online for students to work on in their own time, keeping our joint sessions for group discussions. We created four groups with participants from eight states, and their brief was to identify environmental challenges at local, regional, national and global scale, and then to jointly develop a model project that could be applied to different areas.

Yesterday at the final session the presentations centered on waste disposal, (a big problem in Brazilian cities and one that has been intensified during lockdown,) proper management of water, and wildfires. Each group came up with creative solutions, from making and distributing illustrated leaflets in easily accessible language, to organizing public meetings and demonstrations, to working with local schools and church groups, to setting up campaigns on local media, to recruiting local businesses to join the cause, and lobbying local and state government – always offering suggestions and acting on them. 

The students were so happy with the results that we are now working on the idea of running a three-day workshop for the graduates of these three courses. In this way we hope to keep the momentum going, and later organize regional meetups and potentially visits to Iracambi.

We´re also planning to set up an educational portal on our site, to make available some of the material that we used during the course, and act as a hub for people to meet and work together. We´ll keep you posted!

Exciting stuff and here are some of the comments made by the students.

Talita, who brought her new baby to class, says, “I´m so happy that I invested my time in this course – along with my baby. I really enjoyed the course material and all the videos. The lessons were great and energized me to continue pursuing my real passion – agroecology.”

Maria says “I just want to thank Iracambi for this opportunity and especially Yasmin for the great good fortune I had in getting to know her. What I learned is priceless.  Big thanks to my group for the friendship, loving kindness and respect for each others´ ideas. I’ll keep each of you in my heart and wish you well!”

Noah left an audio message thanking Iracambi and Yasmin for creating a space where the students could meet in a spirit of respect, collaboration and friendship.

And Yasmin? Yasmin´s comment as she left the final class, “I leave with a heart full of hope and happiness. Thank you all!”

So once again, dear donors, thank you for your support. 

with much love from Yasmin and all the Environmental Leaders Online