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Special events for Lancaster district schools in Amazon festival

School students from across Lancaster district – and everyone else in the area – will have the chance to learn about the threats facing rainforest from experts, activists and artists in a month-long festival next month.

The programme for a set of events to commemorate the lives of environmental journalist Dom Phillips and indigenous expert Bruno Pereira has now been published and includes special activities for Lancaster schools.  

Primary and secondary teachers are invited to attend a workshop at Halton Mill on Tuesday 11 October at 7 p.m. with Jules Abrahams, Wendy O’Hara and Jessie Holmes from Morecambe’s Good Things Collective.   They’ll discuss how to get your students involved in creative projects inspired by the rainforest. They’ll be making colourful and imaginative tropical flowers, leaves and trees that may later become part of an animated digital rainforest alongside a wider art installation.  Free, please book a place at www.trybooking.co.uk/BXAA (a recording will be available if you can't make the date).

On the weekend of 19 and 20 November, there’s a two-day international conference at Lancaster Environment Centre: “Saving the Amazon: sharing perspectives” - showcasing the work of researchers, activists, film makers and journalists involved in investigating what is happening in the Amazon and offering just solutions to the environmental crisis there.  The programme includes a keynote speech from indigenous leader Nelly Marubo by Zoom from Manaus on ‘The importance of preserving the forest: the perspective of the Marubo people’.  The conference is free for local sixth formers and other young people, students, and people on low or no wages. Sixth form teachers – as well as everyone interested in what’s going on in the Amazon – are invited to check out the programme at www.tinyurl.com/DomBrunoConference. There’ll be transport to Lancaster University from Halton, Morecambe and the Ridge.

The programme also includes films (with q & a sessions with the directors), online talks, a ‘tropical rainforest tour’ at the Butterfly house, a photography and art exhibitions about Amazonian life, and a masterclass for young and emerging filmmakers.

An exhibition, drawing attention to how the Amazon is being destroyed and showcasing hopeful solutions like those Dom Phillips was researching on his last journey into the Amazon, when he and Bruno were brutally murdered, goes on show at Halton Mill on 30 October.

The programme is being coordinated by low carbon work and event space Halton Mill, which Dom visited last year with his sister, Lancaster musician Sian Phillips. The activities will launch on Sunday 30 October at 5 p.m. at Halton Mill. Sian Phillips and Pete Moser, from More Music, will be speaking and there’ll be Brazilian music and food.  

More info, booking links, and sign up for updates at www.haltonmill.org.uk/DomBruno

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