Prince Charles visits International Service's partner in Brazil's Amazon jungle

As part of his recent trip to Brazil and the Amazon jungle, Prince Charles has visited International Service’s Brazilian partner Projeto Saúde e Alegria - the Health and Happiness Project.

In a journey focusing on issues of environmental protection and climate change, Prince Charles met the riverside community of Maguari where he saw first-hand how their way of life plays a crucial part in protecting the Amazonian environment.

International Service has two development workers supporting Projeto Saúde e Alegria (PSA) in the north of Brazil, where their Abaré Health Boat has taken innovation to the water and is changing the lives of over 15,000 people who live in jungle communities and have extreme difficulty in accessing basic healthcare.

Public services often have difficulty in reaching the jungle’s rural community. Public income is low, transport is difficult and large distances must be travelled which means these communities are almost totally excluded.




However, as Prince Charles’s visit highlighted, the jungle’s cities and communities are essential for preserving the Amazon environment. Instead of stripping the land of its resources – which is typical of ‘slash-and-burn’ commercial production - they fish and farm sustainably using traditional methods, make jewellery from natural materials found in the forest, and produce latex from natural resources.

Armiar Feitosa, a local artisan in Maguari, says “rich countries pollute the environment most of all, while they want us to preserve the Amazon. We know this, but it is us who live with the difficulties here.”

PSA understands how crucial these communities are to the health and preservation of the forest environment.

Their health boat is successfully working to improve general health and combat the number of deaths that occur from simple, preventable diseases such as diarrhoea and malnutrition. PSA (with support from an organisation called Petrobrás) has also set up a digital telecommunications centre connecting the jungle communities with the rest of the world.

Showing Prince Charles how solar energy is used to power computers with internet access, local children and young people published the Mocoronga Communication Network Blog right from the heart of the forest.

You can see the work of PSA, and their health boat, in action in this short film. It is in Portuguese with English captions.