Schools World Service Rainforest

2011 is the UN Year of the Rainforest, and Schools World Service has published films for primary and secondary schools about the experiences of young people at school in the village of Mondana, deep in the rainforest in Ecuador’s Amazon basin.

We went there to visit Yachana High School which has been working in partnership with Sunbury Manor School since 2008 when World Class featured both in an online story.

The two schools were doing an enterprise project with support from Achievers International. Pupils at Yachana sent jewellery they made at the school to their UK partner. The UK pupils aimed to make a profit, which they send back to Yachana High. 

Yachana High is known as "the jungle school".

Situated in Mondana on the banks of the Napo River – one of the Amazon’s greatest tributaries – Yachana High is a boarding school for young people from across Ecuador’s five Amazon provinces and is a Yachana Foundation project.

In the same small village, the state school, Juan Ortega School provides for children from nursery right through to senior school.

We were made welcome by everyone, and were able to speak to children and young people from Mondana village and across the Ecuadorian Amazon region.

Life in the Amazon is changing fast and many of the young people we spoke to welcome the changes.

In our Schools World Service Rainforest films we explored three themes.

Lizbeth tells us about the road which was built through her village last year. Henry takes us to visit his family. Oil has been found in a neighbour’s field and he’s worried about the potential for pollution. And Jefferson takes us home to see him and his dad cutting down a tree.

Everyone can see that it’s hard to balance development and the environment.

How long can these families and the rainforest co-exist?