This last morning in Tumbira began with a ceremony in honor of Bryans. Bryans had once explained that happiness is a kid eating a mango, full of juice all over his face and hands, leaking between his fingers. For this reason, the decision was made to plant a mango tree close to the school in his honor, so his happiness and light can  keep inspiring many people in Tumbira and across the planet. According to Baganda people (Uganda), “Mukasa is the god of plenty, who gave people food, cattle and children. Mukasa was deified hero - a human who was raised to divine status because of his generosity and goodness.” Everyone also made their personal offerings to the river and to him.  

In the afternoon there was a heart-felt closing where participants shared appreciation for each other through a powerful activity led by Tulio. Three people sat in chairs in the center of a circle with their eyes closed. The others whispered or spoke into their ear what they appreciated about them, and those in th...

On the last full day in Tumbira, the group had the chance to present the results to Virgilio, the CEO of FAS and Silvia, the community based tourism manager at FAS. Vigilio gave very positive feedback and presented how FAS intends to engage on the material produced by the group to bring it forward.

Edgard, as facilitator of this section, congratulated the group. However, he added that more could been done if everyone had really connected to their individual and group X-factor. If they could do it again, perhaps they could have done even more if started moving earlier and trusted each other's responsibility and powers.

The morning of the 27th marked the grand reveal of the final week : the challenges or prototypes that the group would have to create by July 30th. Edgard and Fábio presented three missions, guiding principles, and working laws. The principles were simple : the results had to be free, fast, fun. However, he quickly added that because every group "gets the challenge they deserve", the results of the Amazon Summer School prototypes would also have to be fantastic. Being good or great was not enough - they would have to be fantastic. He advised each of the participants that in order to complete the missions, each one would have to allow their X-factor, or individual superpowers, to be unleashed to connect to their higher self and create unimaginable things.

The first step after receiving the challenges was to take half an hour by themselves and wander around, letting their legs take them where they wanted. When back, after some big group decision processes, they divided themselves in three...

After a well-deserved slow start of the day, the bravery module was launched by Edgard Gouveia, sharing his inspirational knowledge and experience with community work and collaborative games. His first step was to surface the group's expectations and make a list on flip chart. With this step out of the way, Edgard guided the group through a series of physical games that sparked reflection about collaboration, and how people usually act in the world.

Some of the feedback or reflection was related to the usual automatic behavior, reaction to commands, and strict goals that are impressed on individuals by society. Through the exercise, the group realized that doing things differently, acting with awareness and including others in process or decision making can lead to results where more people can enjoy and succeed. Participants were left puzzling how they act in the world and relate to others on the way to their dreams and goals.

The afternoon was an introduction to the Oasis Game of Elos...

Raquel, Bruna and Isabel re-told the journey so far and asked participants to reflect on their learning from their experience so far. This set the stage for the second day of workshops.

Raquel Rosenberg , co-founder of Engajamundo - one of the world's most influential youth-led movements, told her inspiring story of engaging youth for environmental policy change on a global level through her #sexify (attitude) and #shalala (love) philosophy, meaning that the messages have to be appealing and attractive to reach the youth public (or sexy) and that love, friendship and compassion (or shalala) have to be embedded in the work so the team have strength to move on together, despite the adversities.

João Rafael Brites, co-founder of Transformers and now Coordinator of Social Business department at Grupo Modelo, used the story of  hip hop - one of his passions - to explain the narrative of social movements. Everyone learned a full dance routine which revealed different elements necess...

Over the course of two days we held the "Know-How"module, where community development specialists and engagement experts from FAS hosted interactive workshops on leadership, social innovation, and how to build a local sustainability fair. The participants also reviewed their journey so far and began to piece together their learnings from the first half of the course. The coordinator of SDSN Youth Amazonas, Gabriela Sampaio, facilitated participants to engage with the sustainable development goals. Raquel Rosenberg The co-founder of Engajamundo, a global youth engagement network for environmental policy reform, explained her approaches of creativity and love, and João Rafael Brites, the founder of the Transformers movement, led a hip-hop workshop to enable participants to understand and then build social movements.

After being briefed by Gabriela about SDSN, participants worked in three groups representing the areas of private sector, civil society and government to come up with ideas fo...

In the morning, participants followed Cesar for a walk in the forest. They remained in silence for an hour, observing nature and how they were feeling in silence and during this point in the course.  After returning from the forest, the silence was broken with some group reflection. Many expressed a desire to be in silence longer and said how helpful it was. Using the theory u journalling guidelines, the participants answered a series of questions and then split into pairs to discuss their answers and learning.

At lunch, a surprise was announced. Everyone would be traveling to a secret beach for the night to sleep in hammocks, guided by Roberto. Even though participants knew it could rain, they all piled into the boat and began the adventure.

The beach was beautiful and participants played games and swam while Roberto prepared a feast of barbequed fish. To end the evening, everyone gathered around the fire for Roberto’s touching story about being a logger and transforming into a communit...

The morning began with a session held by the core team of Bruna, Isabel, and Raquel, to help participants reflect on and contribute to the story of what they had learned so far in the course. After taking note of all the activities, experiences and moments, Cesar began by leading a workshop on letting go which built on the previous days. Participants worked in pairs to identify and then create physical representations of what they wanted to let go of in their life, in order to make space for new. With music playing, participants worked in silence with markers, paint, glue, and even glitter. Mauricio led a class on polarity management in the afternoon. Using the chart process he proposed, participants could identify a polarity they work within it. 

In the afternoon, Leandro led an experiential exercise about community development. Working in groups of similar Jungian archetypes discovered by Mauricio’s first exercise, the participants had to play the role of an NGO designing an intervent...

To begin the day, participant Robyn led us through a movement oriented check in to make clapping and stomping sounds as a group to imitate the monsoon rain outside the classroom. Cesar Matsumoto, a practitioner of Theory U and leader of individual and group transformative change processes, began the first workshop by asking if people could see a world that was dying and a world that wanted to be born. After reflecting individually and with a partner, he wrote down key insights and linked them to a social theory of change called Two-Loops, which comes from the Berkana institute. This opened the door for rich conversations about the different divides and bubbles we are experiencing in the world, such as the social, ecological, and spiritual cultural.

The theory and discussion of examples led to an exercise in which participants each create a timeline of their life from when they were born to present day, identifying three ruptures in which the direction of their lives changed. They identi...

After breakfast the group checked in expressing each feeling with a movement.  Then everyone packed and left Tumbira to visit another community, Três Unidos, located about an hour away by fast boat.

Bruna, Raquel and Isabel asked the participants to visit Três Unidos with the perspective of a tourist, knowing that community based tourism is the main economic activity of this community and that Tumbira aspires to a similar model in the future. The intention was to observe the similarities and differences, and also to reflect about sustainable community development and what this means.

Rafael, the FAS coordinator of Três Unidos and Adriano,  a FAS employee, received the group along with Kambeba community leader Vladimir. They shared stories and explained the main activities and challenges that they have and are facing as their community develops.

Rafael also introduced three community members who design beautiful t-shirts and became local entrepreneurs.

Vladimir gave context and history abou...