Young EcoLeaders of the Brazilian Rainforest

Hey there, lovely donors!

I bet you’re as ready to say goodbye to 2020 as we are down here in the rainforest?

It was a weird year for our education program. But it taught us a lot. We learned that millions of kids in the developing world who miss school for an extended period of time may never go back. So when our local schools reopen at some point in 2021 we need to redouble our efforts to help the children to catch up.  

On the positive side we were able to run a highly successful online course for environmental leaders, which we plan to continue in 2021, in addition to in-person schooling when that resumes. 

And before we go any further, we want to share another item of good news. Thanks to you all, and despite the challenges of 2020, we have almost made our 2021 budget, and if you’re able to help us nail it, we’ll be forever grateful!

And here is a tip from the taxman.

If you are a US tax payer, this year the IRS is allowing you to make non itemized tax deductible donations of up to $300 to non-profits before midnight on 12/31! You can, of course, also make larger, itemized donations.

UK tax payers can also qualify for tax relief – don’t forget to check the GiftAid box on the donation page!

Europeans, Australians, Canadians, Asians, Africans and South Americans, we’re sorry to say, don’t appear to get any tax relief. Just a warm feeling from knowing you’ve done your part to educate the next generation who are going to inherit this beautiful planet.

And as we look back  at 2020. the first thing to say is that we are totally humbled by your generosity. Although we never completely despaired, there were times in the year when we seriously wondered how we were going to make it through.

Like you, we learned to live with uncertainty. We learned to pivot and adapt. We learned to rely on one another. And the most important thing we discovered?

That we’re all in this together, and that together we’ll make it through. We’re going to help those kids catch up on their schooling, because we're in the business of raising a new generation of environmental leaders, right? 

Goodbye, 2020. Goodbye, dear donors. Stay safe, and we’ll see you in 2021. May it bring us all new hope, new life, and renewed courage.

With much love from the whole Iracambi community.

Links:

• Iracambi's website
• Save the Children video on children who miss schooling
• A lost generation of kids?

Olá dear donors!

How are you doing in these crazy last weeks of this crazy year? It’s certainly been a wild ride, but we’re still here, and we absolutely wouldn’t be if it wasn’t for our wonderful supporters and donors from around the world! So we want to send a great big thank you to all of you.

We couldn’t do it without you.

And now we want to introduce you to our first cohort of Environmental Leaders.

First a confession. They course was designed for youth:16-29. But when we advertised it on social media we forgot to include that fact, so, when we subsequently introduced the age range, we had incredibly strong pushback from potential participants saying that we should include young people of all ages. And we did! 

We had students from four of the five regions of Brazil, ages ranging from 18 - 60 something. Teachers were a mixture of university professors, Iracambi staff and practitioners. We met on Google Meet and posted lots of activities in the Google Classroom. Course modules were: 

• Introduction to Iracambi
• Climate change and what we can do about it 
• Covid and its effects on the environment
• Soils and degradation
• Culture, social movements and community leaders
• Public policy and popular participation
• Forests and water
• Closing session, group feedback and next steps.

The course was a huge success and there's already demand for a followup course, a repeat of the first course, and also a course in English!.

We were really pumped by the enthusiastic reaction from the students, and particularly happy to learn from one of the younger students that her first introduction to rainforest science had been as a member of the Young EcoLeaders program! 

Next year we're hoping to have the schoolkids back AND continue with online courses - how exciting is that?  

In the meantime, so many thanks for your support. It's been a challenging year, but thanks to you, we're still here! 

Blessings, take care, and rainforest love from 

Yasmin and the Iracambi team 

PS. Stop press! One of our Environmental Leaders just took a four hour bus ride to join us at Iracambi and help with the tree planting!  

Links:

• Iracambi website
• climate change presentation