Changing Education and Inspiring Conservation Heroes.

What is the issue?

Paraguay’s general education – based on rote memory rather than any sort of critical thinking – is ranked 136th out of 138 participating countries. And it gets even worse when we look at the natural sciences: Here, the quality of Paraguay’s maths and science education ranked 137 of 138 participating countries. Overcrowded classrooms, underpaid teachers, and language suppression for Guaraní speaking children are just some of the issues. Children in more rural, poorer areas are more affected than their urban counterparts, with 10 to 15 per cent of these children completely illiterate.

Why does environmental education matter?

The lack of environmental education in the Paraguayan curriculum means that even the people living closest to natural areas have limited understanding of the value of nature and the critical importance of its protection. Paraguay is predicted to be the first country in the world to lose ALL of its primary forest, more than 91% of the Atlantic Forest has been destroyed in the last 80 years.

There is now so little left that only focusing on protecting what remains is not enough, targeted reforestation is needed. In order for this strategy to success, we must inspire a generation of conservation heroes with a solid understanding of the issues and a passion to create a new reality.

We believe that participatory environmental education is the way to do this.

Where’s the evidence?

Our relationship with Mberu Pirapo’i Mbya Guaraní community began in April 2018 when Becca began to teach about nature and conservation in the community school. Over the years working in the school trust was built with the community that lead to the initiation of the reforestation programme.

Starting in 2023, together the Mberu Pirapo’i we launched a programme of economically-beneficial reforestation. Community members who wished to participate reforest their land (long since cleared) with a combination of 14 different native Atlantic Forest trees and the endemic cash crop, Yerba Mate. The Yerba Mate will provide a long-term, sustainable income source for the families while the native trees begin to recover the Atlantic Forest that has been lost. To date, we have planted more than 18,500 saplings, reforesting 7 hectares of land and benefitting 18 families and the Mberu Pirapo’i school. The children who participated in the environmental education programme (many of whom now have children of their own) have been key to the implementation of this project!

So what’s next?

Our dream to see eastern Paraguay once again covered with healthy forest, and people being lifted out of poverty without the full scale habitat destruction we have seen in the past. We have been working with our partners in Itapúa to make new connections!

In October, Becca approached the Educational Area 18-13 supervisors with an idea. Would they be interested in running a trial project with us, to see if we can improve how school children in Paraguay learn about the environment?

Next year, we will be working with 10 indigenous communities across the Itapúa department – nine Mbya Guaraní schools and one Mâka school - visiting once a month to deliver fun, exciting and educational lessons about the environment. Working with the teachers, we will use our participatory education curriculum, Voces de la Naturaleza, to compliment the themes in national curriculum that the schools teach, helping to deliver a deeper and more memorable understanding of the natural sciences and the importance of conservation. At the end of the year we will present the results of this programme to the Ministry of Education and petition to have the curriculum supplement included in the national curriculum!

How does this help Atlantic Forest conservation?

This is the first step to building the relationships and trust with new communities, while helping nature a generation of children with a deeper understanding of science, nature and conservation! Our goals are lofty: changing natural science education for children across Paraguay and building relationship that can lead to the expansion of the reforestation programme.

As the saying goes,

“Even a journey of a thousand miles starts with a single step”

Our work with Mberu Pirapo’i has shown us what’s possible and the time is now to take that step and find out how big a difference we can make!

But we need your help! Donating to our End-Of-Year fundraiser will help support this project, making sure we can reach every community every month. No donation is too small and every penny donated will make a profound difference in this too-often neglected part of the world.

£5 –equipment kit for lessons in one school (coloured pencils, erasers, glue).

£10 – snacks for after one class for all ten schools (Many of the children in these communities are lacking in access to food so we try to bring a snack for after the classes).

£50 – equipment kit for lessons in ten schools.

£80 – a tank of diesel that will allow us to reach all of the ten schools.

£150 – printing of Voces de la Naturaleza curriculum supplement for all teachers in the partner schools.

£400 – cover all the costs of a round of visits to the ten schools.

£1000 – a years worth of maintenance on our 4x4 vehicle. This might sound boring but the roads to these communities are not kind to our truck and it is impossible to carry out the project without it!

£3000 – All project costs covered for the year!