Young EcoLeaders of the Brazilian Rainforest

Hey there fellow environmentalist friend!

If you're receiving this e-mail, you have a special place in our hearts (and minds), since you dreamed with us, believed with us and already contributed to our cause of creating a new generation of leaders passionate about the environment and ready to save the world and we want to thank you so much for all your help!

We firmly believe that we can change lives through education, 'cause it can be a key player when it comes to tackling the "unknowns" of the world and mitigating the lack of knowledge.

And now we want to invite you to a special event that is going to happen on the beginning of April!

You may be familiar with the famous Berlin Wall, a concrete barrier that divided the city of Berlin for 28 years, not only physically but also ideologically, in what was once known as West Berlin and East Berlin. Nowadays, you can find the wall covered with arts works and quotes from artists all over the world.

And there we can find a beautiful sentence that says “many small people, in many small places, do many small things, that can alter the face of the world”.

We believe that this quote meets the principle of the GlobalGiving's Little by Little campaign, that presupposes that every action, even if we think it’s a small one, can contribute to big change!

So, you must be wondering, what is this campaign all about?

GlobalGiving is matching online donations up to $50 at 50% for five straight days!

Our target is to raise funds for one of our most beloved projects called “Young Eco Leaders of the Brazilian Rainforest” that wants to raise a generation of young people passionate to solve the problems that we face today when it comes to the environment.

We also can say that the balance and future of the planet depends on the preservation of the environment, as well as to have solidarity with the future generations that will inhabit planet Earth, their heritage.

And how can YOU help?

 We count on you to help us raise $7500 by making a donation up to $50 beginning on Monday, 4th of April, until Friday, 8th of April.

And if you can’t help with a donation, spread the word to your friends and families to also help us!

Let's make the future bright together! 

With warm hugs from Juliana and the rainforesters. 

To our incredible donors,

We simply have to tell you about the last two courses of education through the arts held by our incredible teachers who are amazing! And because they were a big hit with our audience, we´ll also be offering two more workshops in April for graduates of our program.

The current course started on March 10th and will be taking place during this month. But we’re here to also give you a sneak peak of what we will publish in our blog over the next few days: some testimonials from our alumni!

We are also proud to say that soon enough, in addition to our online courses, we will welcome an additional environmental educator to work with the local schools, and we will be back with some exciting news about what we are planning!

So, stay tuned!

With lots of love, from Yasmin and the rainforest team.

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! 

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 fact it's hard to imagine being able to generate so much energy online - more particularly in the face of all sorts of minor setbacks such as balky internet connections, uncooperative cameras, and all the small interruptions that turn up in the more than forty households across the country that join our virtual classroom space every week. 

In our last letter we were telling you about the first module of the course: earth. This time we want to showcase our second module: water. If we think of earth as representing something solid - our bodies, the roots of plants, the ground beneath our feet - water represents movement, flexibility, free flowing emotions. 

We open our classes by checking in with everyone and sharing any feedback. And then it's time to get up, warm up and start moving. When we are thinking of water, we imagine all the different ways in which water moves - gentle rain, heavy rain, drifting snow, water dripping off the leaves of trees, a slow moving stream, a rushing waterfall, the waves of the sea, a violent tsunami.....

And once we are all focused, it's time to play. In pairs, one person moves and the other mirrors those movements, after  which  roles are reversed.  A second game reminds us of the childhood game of passing the parcel. Students mime passing a small object (a pencil, a handkerchief, a notebook,) from one to the next, and when the moderator claps her hands, the person holding the object comes up with one letter of the alphabet. The object is passed to the next person whose task is to come up with six words beginning with the letter of the alphabet that has just been given. All those words should be connected with water, and the idea is to find the words in fifteen seconds. 

Story time, and we start telling a story about water, with each student adding one sentence to the story. As you can imagine, it's  always fun to see where the story goes. And then, we share another folk legend - this one telling the story of Iemanja, queen of the sea and the spirit of moonlight. 

As part of their homework, students are asked to create a picture connected with the theme of water. With no hangups or judgement, and no worrying about the fact that they can´t draw, simply finding the courage to put something on paper as we all did when we were children. 

And the results are extraordinary! Somehow, through the magic of the internet, we are able to draw together busy people from all corners of the country, and jointly rediscover our creativity,  our energy, and our love for teaching - especially about nature. And we're getting overwhelmingly positive comments from the students. 

So than you, dear donors, for making this possible! And for us this is an especially exciting moment in our journey because, in a sense, it closes the circle. We bring local schoolchildren out of the classroom into the forest to discover it for themselves. We offer internships and bring students and volunteers together from across the world to work on issues of conservation and sustainability. We provide a safe space for researchers to do their field studies. We run online courses for environmental leaders. And now we have the course for educators, who in turn will be able to educate more chilldren!

Who  knows where this will lead us next? We'll keep you informed and would love to hear your feedback and suggestions! 

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