ACRAA at School

In order to encourage environmental education, we created the ACRAA at School project, which takes activities related to environmental conservation to basic and early childhood education. 

We believe that the education of young people is essential for building a sustainable future and that there is a ripple effect when children take the knowledge acquired at school to their communities, reaching a greater number of people. 

According to the Brazilian National Environmental Education Policy, Law nº 9795/1999, Art 1:

“Environmental education is understood as the processes through which the individual and the community build social values, knowledge, skills, attitudes and competences aimed at conservation of the environment, a good for common use by the people, essential to a healthy quality of life and its sustainability.” 

In this sense, ACRAA has been carrying out activities with the existing preschool and elementary schools in the village of Alter do Chão, where ACRAA’s headquarters are located. 

The region of Alter do Chão is originally inhabited by the indigenous Borari ethnic group. The schools that ACRAA has been carrying out its activities are schools that are under Borari indigenous coordination.

We have projects in progress at two of these schools, one the Borari Escola Professor Antônio de Sousa Pedroso, and the other the Municipal Center for Indigenous Child Education – Professor Marilda Vasconcelos Soares Borari (refered to here as Escola CEMEI Borari). 

Together with both these schools we are carrying out tree planting around the schools, and the construction of small plant nurseries at each school [1]. In these nurseries, planting beds have/will be built for seedlings of native trees destined for reforestation, and for vegetables and medicinal plants. 

We seek to create the possibility for students to contribute to the food that will be served in their school lunches (provided at the schools), and to rescue and reaffirm the ancestral knowledge of natural medicine of the native peoples. 

In addition to work at the schools, practical classes will be held at the ACRAA nursery where students from these institutions will be able to learn step by step the process of handling plants in a nursery. Excursions will also be made to nearby areas to carry out reforestation/restoration activities in degraded areas, and for urban tree planting.

To learn more about the work at each of these schools, click the links below.

Borari Escola Professor Antônio de Sousa Pedroso

Escola CEMEI Borari

But for ACRAA to continue developing and carrying out this and other projects, we need your help. Please click on the “Donate” link above. Any amount donated will be important to our continued work in defense of the Amazon forest and the peoples. Thank you!