“You develop a lot of courage to do things you wouldn’t even think of doing before.”
With her project gathering around 1500 followers, adding more than 70 virtual meetings, and counting on the distinguished presence of Marcelo Gleiser to Silvio Louzada, the little popcorn Mayumi Liz has been highlighting environmental education wherever her feet step — or rather, bouncing around. Always jumping around, the joy and energy of Mayumi, a PLB 1 participant, pulse even through the small screens, where she won people over through several actions: founder of ECOarentena, coach of VLB5, trainee manager of VLB9, and mentor in College Application V-Club.
Born in São Paulo, Mayumi moved to Mairiporã as a child and stayed there until she was 12 when she moved to Santos, all these cities in São Paulo. In Mairiporã, Mayumi lived close to the forest, highly wooded areas, and diverse fauna. When she moved to Santos, she found a completely different reality: buildings, more buildings, and polluted beaches. In the face of this scare, she started to ask more and more questions in order to understand the reason for such a difference. She began to become a leader and never stopped: she joined the cleanup movements in the region, became the director of education for her school’s students’ union, and found in education a form of guidance on environmental issues that were so vibrant. Then she discovered her goal: to become a spokeswoman for environmental science.
While still in school, Mayumi heard from a LALA Alumni friend that the bootcamp had been the best experience of his life (we know!). Moved by her curiosity, she applied and discovered in LALA the call to grow a sustainable community — while dealing with the dedication that her academic studies required. Inspired, she returned from Peru — where PLB1 took place — determined to begin the change from the inside out. She founded Mentes Brilhantes, a project whose objective was to carry out actions aimed at preventing mental health within his school context. Still, In the same year, she revitalized all the restrooms in her school with motivating messages; since the restroom was known to be the place where students went to cry when they were sad. That’s why Mayumi says that: “Once you are inside the LALA community, you discover that you have a lot of potentials and develop a lot of courage to do things that you wouldn’t even think about before.”
At the beginning of the pandemic, a desire emerged in her to place the environmental issue in the spotlight as much as the coronavirus — since it originates from an ecosystem issue. It was believed that if we weren’t looking forward to talking about it, we would most likely go through similar situations in the future. ECOarentena arose with the objective of creating chats where people can interact with environmental activists and scientists: the idea was to bring the issue of environmental science to young people, covering several subjects ranging from light pollution to climate change. Her project has already impacted more than 1700 people from all over Brazil and has had 75 guest speakers!
For the future, the new Dartmouth student sees herself majoring in Environmental Studies and Science and finds in the LALA community a self-sustaining fertile ground through which several branches exist to take us to a variety of places where we have the potential to do so. Engaged in several LALA programs and fighting for the environment, Mayumi says she wants to leave at least another thousand years of humanity in the world as a legacy. For such an impact, joy, and art of communication, we at LALA love and are grateful for Mayumi’s unique existence and for being able to share her development continually.
These stories are written and edited by the Storytelling Team, an alumni-lead team that collects stories with the objective of recognizing and celebrating the wonderful work that volunteers, staff, and alumni do for LALA and also showing how the organization has impacted their life.
