With only 4 months to go before the end of the pilot for Phase 1 of the cCLEAR program in the communities of Maguary and Jamaraquá on east shore of the Tapajós River, we've decided to cut 3 of the 7 initial participants.  We haven't been as successful as we had hoped in motivating  them to dedicate the energy they need in order to be successful with the program.

The three participants we're cutting are Elso Alves (known as Sunta), Rui Fonseca, and Donildo Lopes (Guido). While they are interested in gaining more skills, they want to see immediate impact on their individual projects, and are not committed to invest enough time and energy to improve basic skills such as critical thinking, problem solving and others which they don't completely understand.

We recognized this risk when we started working with Sunta, Rui and Guido at the end of last year. Although all three of the individuals already have achieved some degree of success with their ventures on their own, we feel that they lack some of the basic skills necessary to serve as a foundation for sustained growth. For example, although Elso is very motivated and has a strong sense that he can achieve success if he works hard, he makes rash decisions about starting new ventures, and doesn't always display the discipline required to execute many of his ideas to fruition.

Rui showing a visitor how to make a backpack out of palm leaves

When we started the pilot for Phase 1 of the cCLEAR program, we had a goal of signing up 15 participants in Suruacá and another 15 split between Maguary and Jamaraquá.  It proved more difficult to enroll participants than we had hoped and we were only able to enroll 8 in Surauca and 7 in the communities in Maguary and Jamaraquá. This was largely because many community members were not willing to invest time and energy into a project that doesn't guarantee immediate impact, such as increased income, or doesn't give resources directly. We're hoping that it will become much easier to attract Guido, Rui, Sunta and other participants once they witness tangible impact from the success of our first participants.

The remaining participants in the cCLEAR phase 1 pilot from Maguary and Jamaraquá are Derlei Pedroso (Pipoca) , Dejalma Lopes, Arimar Feitosa and Ney Feitosa. Coincidentally all four participants work with producing products made with natural rubber. Pipoca and Dejalma both hope to create products from Tekbor, a natural rubber cured through a unique process not requiring heat. Ney is the current Director of Couro Ecologico, a producer association that makes purses from natural rubber.  Arimar, who is Ney's brother, was one of the founders and chief visionary of Couro Ecologico, but left the venture to produce other products, including sandals and little rubber animals.

As for Sunta, Rui and Guild, although they will no longer participate in cCLEAR - at least for now - we do plan to continue to involve them closely with our Unveiling the Amazon trip to the communities. Sunta and Rui are both actively involved with tourism in their communities and would benefit tremendously from working with the visitors we bring. For example, Rui is trying to improve tours available in Jamaraquá and could learn a lot from visitor insights. Guilo produces honey and although doesn't offer as much potential for involvement during the visit, we hope to set up at least a day of activities where he could explain bee-keeping in the community, and perhaps even get some help building new hives!