As the group had decided to continue the program, it was important to write a letter in behalf of  Amazon Summer School team and participants with details and feelings regarding Bryans’ accident. So, the day began with the whole group splitting to either write the letter or do a painting activity that Isabel offered. At the end of morning the group gathered again to collectively improve the letter and make a final version.

To read the letter, click here.

The afternoon started with Karina Miotto’s class. Karina had been with the whole group since the first day and she was ready to kick off her part of the course.  Karina is master in Holistic Science at Schumacher College.

After the classroom session she led an activity in the forest. Arriving at the trail, she asked the group to collect a “ piece of life” (any item from the forest) as they were walking. Once they reached the heart of the forest, the group was divided into pairs. One was blindfolded! The pair without the blindfold guided t...

The day began at 7am with a mass that the community of Tumbira organized in memory and prayer for Bryans. The mass was led by Dona Vera who said beautiful words and helped everyone move through their pain. It was a moment of group union in love and care. Everyone cried and took what each needed for the moment.

In the afternoon, Raquel, Isabel and Pedro returned from Manaus and spoke about the hard moments that had occurred over the past hours. In moments of distraction the kids joined the group to play and draw. At some point, as a group, it was understood that it was time to start moving energy and make a collective decision about the future of the Amazon Summer School.

After dinner, everybody gathered in the classroom space, sat in a circle and opened a sharing space for people’s feelings and thoughts. It was said that, whatever the group decided that night would be a collectively discussed, even if each had a different idea of how they wanted to proceed. The group would be committed t...

The day began for some people at 6am when they went to Teresinha’s land learn with her and her husband how to harvest manioc.

After breakfast time the group had a check-in about how each person was feeling that day and welcomed the experts who had just arrived by boat: Virgilio Viana, Adalberto Val, Thomas Lovejoy and Lorena San Roman.

Adalberto Val, former president of INPA gave the first class. He spoke about environmental challenges in the amazon. One of the main challenges is to preserve the biodiversity of animals and seeds, especially given that everything is interconnected and is being impacted from deforestation and climate change in the last years. He used the change of water levels and temperature as an example of such a change and the impact this has on species. He presented some valuable examples and numbers about the current context and proposed that is possible to reach a ZERO deforestation rate.

Virgilio Viana, CEO of FAS, elaborated on some of the challenges of sustainabl...

As the sun began to rise across the horizon it was the time for the group to pack all their belongings and head to the community of Tumbira. The car, crowd-funded by participants Camila and Pedro, was waiting to drive all the people and backpacks to the pier where the fast boat was ready to begin the journey down Rio Negro.

Raquel had gone earlier and was already waiting for the rest of the crew. As soon as everyone arrived, they went to their camp receive the second part of the welcome kit : a brightly colored hammock made by a group of women from different riverine communities and a huge mosquito net. Working together, participants and the coordinator of the school nucleus, Cristiano, started setting up the hammocks.

Once the hammocks were set up, everyone gathered in the classroom where some Tumbira’s students, teachers and leaders greeted the participants with a special welcome ceremony for the Amazon Summer School. Each student introduced themselves, and as each said his or her name...