Project Summary: Describe your contribution in one sentence

Formigas-de-embaúba is a non-profit organization that promotes environmental education through the planting of native mini forests by students in public schools in Brazil. We aim to create a new generation of forest restoration implementers, by leading students in Brazilian public schools through a 6-months participatory project-based process that creates a native mini forest in their schoolyard. See here a 3min documentary about our work: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xS4MeVjw-9w

What are the additional countries or territories of impact?

 

Challenge Focus: What topic does your project most directly relate to?

Creating inclusive pathways for people to contribute towards building a sustainable worldCreating structures of support for regenerative solutions to today's climate challenges

Website URL(s) or social media handles

https://www.instagram.com/formigasdeembauba/

The Problem: What problem are you helping to solve?

Our program tackles a global issue by focusing on educating the new generations of Brazil, and the mini forests created in their schools become spaces of biodiversity and help to fight climate change, benefiting a wide public. It’s an urgent matter to empower new generations to revive damaged ecosystems. In 2022 our organization became an official partner of the UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration (2021-2030) and of the Pact for the Restoration of the Atlantic Forest as well as the global network of Miyawaki forests SUGi. We are working in the Atlantic Forest, one of the world’s hotspots for biodiversity and selected by the United Nations as one of the 10 major areas for ecological restoration during this decade. Our mini forest reintroduces over a hundred species of native trees, many endangered, into an urban area like São Paulo, becoming habitat for many species of local fauna.  School communities are involved in all steps of the project, from design to implementation to monitoring of the mini forest. And the mini forests help improve people's health, create corridors of biodiversity in the city, mitigate heat islands, increase soil infiltration and improve air quality, in addition to producing food, absorbing carbon and attracting pollinators and avifauna.

Your connection and commitment: How close are you to the problem and/or the community impacted?

We are an organization from São Paulo working with São Paulo's poorest communities, so we are local. Also, our organization hires and trains environmental educators from the communities, prioritizing black and indigenous women. School communities are involved in all steps of the project, from design to implementation to monitoring of the mini forest. The selected schools have volunteered to receive the project, and have officially authorized the project through their council that unites school directors and community representatives. After implementation, the school communities continue to be involved in the maintenance of the mini forests together with our team, ensuring community ownership. 

 

Your approach: How are you enabling other people to identify as green changemakers? How are you influencing them to get involved in your initiative or care about the issue you are addressing?

We involve these communities in a long-term intense, hands on urban ecological restoration projet. Our environmental educators will carry out six outdoor experiences lasting about 1 hour each, with students from the selected schools, in groups of up to 15 students per turn. The activities begin with the participatory diagnosis and reading of the world by the students. After this initial diagnosis, the students begin to observe and study the soil and carry out various activities to understand the importance of living soil as part of the ecological restoration process, based on the principles of the Miyawaki Method. At the end of the semester, in a week of joint efforts with the project team, the students and community  will open the holes for the trees, plant the seedlings and cover the ground with litter. The intention is to introduce the greatest possible number of native tree species, seeking to reflect the high biodiversity of the Atlantic forest. Weeks after planting, students return to the area for activities to observe and care for the nascent mini forest. After planting, our team will continue to maintain the area for the next two years, together with school communities.

 

Community involvement: How is your approach involving community participation, especially the historically marginalized groups?

Our program focuses on (i) students from 2 to 17 years old studying in public schools in the City of Sao Paulo, mostly black communities and from low income households in the outskirts of the city; and (ii)  also focuses on Sao Paulo's public school teachers, which are currently about 70% women. And our organization hires and trains environmental educators from the communities, prioritizing black and indigenous women. School communities are involved in all steps of the project, from design to implementation to monitoring of the mini forest. The selected schools have volunteered to receive the project, and have officially authorized the project through their council that unites school directors and community representatives. So our planting team will prepare the area so the children, young people and the school community can actively participate in the planting of a mini-atlantic forest. After planting, our team will continue to maintain the area for the next two years, together with school communities. The Miyawaki Method that we use for planting mini forests dates back to the 1970s and Japanese botanist Akira Miyawaki's method of restoring original vegetation on degraded land. 

Your Innovation: What is different about your initiative compared to other solutions already out there? How is your approach original and innovative? We are particularly interested in solutions that use regenerative approaches.

Our program is highly innovative because it makes students protagonists of the ecological restoration process , bringing such an urgent matter into schools and avoiding the pitfalls of content-based programs where students just sit and listen. The creation of these forests are be part of an environmental education programme, engaging students and school communities through a 6-month participatory project-based process that creates a native mini-forest in their schoolyard. It brings back knowledge about the native Atlantic Forest, its microclimate, soil life, fruits, and species of flora and fauna and connects this community intervention with global socio-environmental issues such as ecological restoration and climate change, inspiring people to act and take small steps towards collective and transformative changes. Our tiny, biodiverse and dense mini forests can be as small as a tennis court and are based on the work of the Japanese botanist Akira Miyawaki, who has planted more than 1,000 such forests in Japan, Europe and Latin America, as adapted to our local environment in partnership with local universities. The Miyawaki Method includes careful preparation of the soil, selection of a high variety of native species and dense planting of trees and companion species.The Atlantic Forest, in Portuguese Mata Atlântica, is the tropical rainforest that used to cover Brazil’s coast, now with about 90% of its original area cleared. It’s one of the main biodiversity hotspots in the world, with over 20,000 species of plants, many under threat of extinction.  As such, our project sets an example for the restoration of Atlantic Forest in urban areas across Brazil involving the surrounding communities.

 

Founding Story: Share a story about the "Aha!" moment that led the founder(s) to get started or the story of how you saw the potential for this to succeed.

We have started our organization working as volunteers in a public school in our neighborhood. As we realized how these students lacked access to ecological education, we saw also that educational systems around the world have been provoked to assume their responsibility in the face of the need to form citizens with a new attitude towards nature, with values ​​and attitudes different from those that led the planet to the current situation of intense environmental imbalance. Through our programs, students become active citizens and are able to connect this local community intervention with global socio-environmental issues, inspiring people to act and take small steps towards collective and transformative actions. Through project-based pedagogy, we take ecological restoration into schools, so that school communities become aware of and act in the face of climate change, conservation and regeneration of biodiversity. It is necessary to cultivate in children from an early age the principles of sensitivity to the earth, ecological responsibility and to encourage them to understand themselves as part of nature and not apart from it.

Impact: How has your project made a difference so far? How is it contributing to a zero-carbon world- where every person thrives, and nobody gets left behind?

Since 2021, we have reached more than 4,300 students and more than 1,600 teachers, planting 11 mini forests in São Paulo's public schools with over 10,000 trees of 125 species native to the Atlantic Forest, many of them fruit trees such as cambuci, uvaia, grumixama, guava, cabeludinha, araçá, pitanga, jabuticaba and others. 

The benefits of the project are both local and global. The pedagogical process of creating these mini-forests makes these children and communities aware of the urgency of regenerating ecosystems and mitigating climate change. These mini-forests grow to become outdoor classrooms, spaces for learning and connecting with nature, aligned with new educational concepts of practical experiences for the socio-emotional development of students and the generation of solutions based on nature in the urban space.

And the mini forests help improve people's health, create corridors of biodiversity in the city, mitigate heat islands, increase soil infiltration and improve air quality, in addition to producing food, absorbing carbon and attracting pollinators and avifauna.

 

What’s Next: What are your ideas for taking your project to the next level?

Our program tackles a global issue by focusing on educating the new generations of Brazil, specifically those in public schools, mostly from low income households in the outskirts of these cities. We are currently running the program in schools in the metropolitan area of Sao Paulo, where about 23 million people live and ~3 million go to public schools. And about 650 public schools in the city of São Paulo have areas available where it would be possible to plant Atlantic Forest mini-forests with up to 500,000 trees, a significant contribution to reforesting one of the largest metropolises on the planet. These estimates are from survey we are leading in collaboration with MapBiomas, a leading developer of automated sattelite images reading, and the Faculty of Architecture and Urbanism at University of São Paulo (USP).

After its current growth phase in São Paulo, our program could be scaled to public schools on the coast of Brazil, an area which was previously covered by the Atlantic Forest (Mata Atlântica), where about 150 million people live and ~38 million go to public schools. In the long run, we expect to create conditions for the project to become public policy in the cities we are operating.

Your team: What is the current composition of your team (types of roles, qualifications, full-time vs. part-time, board members, etc.), and how do you plan to evolve the team’s composition as the project grows?

Our key team members:

• Rafael Ribeiro: Founder & Director. Before moving into the education and ecological restoration field about 5 years ago, Rafael worked for 10 years in renewable energy finance in Latin America. Holds a Bachelor in Law and is doing a Master in Anthropology of Nature at the Univ. of São Paulo. 
• Gabriela Ribeiro: Education Director. Gabriela has over 15 years of experience in environmental education in public schools in Brazil. She co-wrote some of the text books in the field and holds a Bachelor in Geography from the Univ. of São Paulo.     
• Sheila Ceccon: Education Director. Sheila has over 20 years of experience in environmental education in public schools in Brazil, having led the creation of key public policies in the field. 
• Simone Bazarian: Planting Director. Simone holds a Ph.D. in Tropical Forest Restoration Ecology from the Univ. of São Paulo.
• Ghislaine Dubrule: Head of Funding Committee. Ghislaine co-founded one of the main furniture retail chains in Brazil.   

Operational Sustainability Plan: What is this solution’s plan to ensure operational sustainability.

Major implementation risks and challenges to scale include: 

1. Securing financing: We are constantly monitoring financing opportunities to our project in Brazil and elsewhere and have demonstrated ability to secure financing so far, both as donations and sale of services, therefore having a hybrid financing model as a non-profit. However, our growth speed can be impaired by lack of timely funds.  
2. Finding and hiring qualified people: We have been able to attract major talents in the field, who compose our key personnel. However, as we expand to cities far from São Paulo, our growth speed can be impaired by the difficult to obtain qualified people. To mitigate that risk, we are starting to train environmental educators from other regions.    
3. Articulations with local governments: Our projects are directly articulated with local municipalities so we can access public schools managed by them, even though we are privately funded. Demand is high for our programs from local governments, but they can be expected to be slow to answer and to confirm verbal or formal agreements. We have been demonstrating ability to secure agreements with cities in the great area of São Paulo, where we are first piloting and are starting talks with associations of cities in Brazil, organizations that congregate several cities in certain areas, speeding up our expansion. 

VIDEO: Please share the link to a 1-minute YouTube video that answers the following “I identify as a Green Changemaker because...”. Ensure that your video does not exceed 60 seconds

Please see in this link a video by our co-founder Rafael Ribeiro, who is the one in our founding team that speaks the best English: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1KERJ4p4JlCa31BQJrREsLgkKU9tnYIWg/view?usp=share_link

Impact Model: While reviewing applications, we identified a need to better understand the impact models for the innovations that applied. How would you describe the activities you engage in and what outcomes and long-term impact do they lead to?

• Interventions: Environmental education for teachers and students in Brazilian public schools through a participatory, project-based process that creates a native mini forest in their schoolyard.
• Key Stakeholders: (i) Public Schools & Local governments, with whom we plan all the activities with students, teachers and communities; (ii) Private donors, such as national and international institutes and companies, who finance the programs; (iii) Network of local suppliers, who provide all inputs for our mini forests.
• Shor/medium-term: (i) Outcomes: School communities demonstrate higher attention and create actions related to sustainability (eg climate change & ecosystem restoration), (b) Raised schools communities interest and engagement with the mini forests; (ii) Indicators: (a) Perceived change in students mindset and attitude related to sustainability (eg climate change & ecosystem restoration); (b) Number of projects related to the mini forests created and implemented; (iii) Methodology: Online surveys and interviews with teachers, students and other community members.
• Long-term: (i) Outcomes: (a) Create conditions for the establishment of an ecologically conscious school community, enabled to act to generate positive impact in the environment (eg climate change & ecosystem restoration), (b) Mini forests become biodiverse self sustaining ecosystems, capturing carbon, producing food for people and other animals, improving air quality and the communities health and (c) Create conditions for the project to become public policy in the cities we are operating; (ii) Indicators: (a) Measure school communities based on the pillars of sustainable schools, (b) Mini forests monitoring, (c) Public policies influenced or created based on our programs; (iii) Methodology: Case studies.

Audience: Who are you most directly impacting through your work? Who is the target beneficiary? Please specify if the population you are reaching is underserved due to any of the following characteristics?

RaceAge - Youth Socio-Economic Class

If you chose the "Other" option, please specify

 

How are you activating green changemakers?

Engaging emotions: Communicating climate change in a way that resonates with individuals’ specific situations to trigger an emotional engagement Making progress visible: identifying tangible metrics that help people understand how their contribution is part of a bigger whole Imagining new possibilities: leading group processes to help people see the possibilities and consequences of acting; innovating new products, business models, or ways of organising Creating a community: bringing together peers to share learnings, reinforce behaviours, and develop positive social norms; hosting gatherings where people see their work as part of a bigger whole Other

If you chose the "Other" option, please specify

Planting and maintaining mini forests with several school communities in the Great São Paulo area, a hands on approach as part of a broader environmental educational program!

Organization Type: Which organization type best describes how your work or initiative has been organized or registered?

Nonprofit/NGO

Tell us briefly about how you have and/ or would like to engage partners or other changemakers to enhance your approach:

We are currently implementing the program in schools in the metropolitan area of Sao Paulo, where about 23 million people live and ~3 million go to public schools. After its current phase, our program is planned to be expanded to public schools on the coast of Brazil, an area which was previously covered by the Atlantic Forest (Mata Atlântica), where about 150 million people live and ~38 million go to public schools. 

 

Therefore, we are in an intense growth phase, and engaging with partners or other changemakers will be absolutely helpful to learn from those organizations who have been in similar situations. We have been learning a lot so far, constantly improving our programs with feedback received, creating innovative ways to scale and fund our organization, while building a core team fully aligned with our mission. Our programs are highly innovative because it makes students protagonists of the ecological restoration process of a mini-forest as a tool to fight climate change, and we have been developing and testing new ways to provide financial sustainability for a non profit organization. But we do not need to reinvent the wheel and would benefit enormously from the experience and knowledge of the other social innovators from the green changemakers network.

 

Annual budget: Hint: What is the cost for your current operations every year (or most recent year)? This is expenditure for your project or organization. The reference currency is the U.S. dollar.

$100k - $250k

Winning Impact Potential: How would winning the Green Changemakers Challenge impact and leverage your work?

Our program leads students in Brazilian public schools through a 6-month participatory project-based process that creates a native mini-forest in their schoolyard. With the funds (~USD 25,000), we would be able to take our program to 5 public schools in the greater São Paulo area, reaching about 2,000 students and 150 teachers directly and planting ~7,000 native trees of over 100 species in 5 mini forests that will benefit all present and future generations. Also, winning the Green Changemakers Challenge would have a huge impact by bringing strong credentials and visibility to our organization, making it easier for us to overcome major implementation challenges to scale that include securing financing internationally, closing agreements with local governments and training qualified people from the communities where we are working, prioritizing black and indigenous women. Therefore, with your support we would be able to consolidate our programs, aiming at the creation and strengthening of care networks for the environment and common spaces in these school communities, working the skills necessary to tackle the climate crisis. It is a unique way to act in reforestation, conserving biodiversity, providing food security and preventing the water crisis, contributing to the creation of generations who will be able to be part of the regeneration of the planet.

Skills Matching: If you win, you may have the opportunity to be matched with HSBC employees for skill-based mentorship. If matched, which of the following skills would you be most interested in receiving?

Project Management