This May, we have welcome our third 100,000 Strong in the Americas program to Iracambi. A group of 10 students from Ball State University have descended upon our rainforest home, along with familiar face John Motlock. John has not only been here with student groups before but has also supported our previous Iracambi Strong programs, and we’re thrilled to welcome him back and to welcome the new faces!

While here, the students will be putting themselves to excellent use by developing a waste water management system for Centro to maximize our environmental efficiency. Not even here a week and the students have gotten stuck in with planning, as well as identifying additional jobs around Iracambi where they can help out. A few guys have even suggested tackling the notoriously tricky roads round here to help prevent erosion – how great would that be?!

In amongst all this, the group has been learning about Iracambi and the way we do things around here, to supplement their own university learning and as foundation knowledge for the practical work they intend to do here. Visits to Lele’s house to see how he has incorporated environmental practice into the building work have gone particularly well.

As we reach the end of the planning stage, Robin is busy buying up materials for the group to use as they get stuck in and get their hands dirty in the practical part of the program – we cannot wait to see how they get on! We’ll certainly be sad to see them leave as they head of to Rio Pomba for week 3 of their course but hope they enjoy the experience as much as previous programs have.

As for us… well, no rest for the wicked as they say, and we’ll be welcoming our next educational program before the BSUers have even left – a group from American University in Washington. But it’s great to have so many people around getting involved, and while it’s definitely hectic, we wouldn’t want it any other way!