Dear colleagues and partners,

I am leaving you and iCS with a mixture of good feelings. After almost 3 years, I can say that iCS is one of the most dynamic organizations where I have ever worked. I am immensely grateful for the opportunities that I have had to test ideas, and in meeting stimulating people and interesting organizations that have changed my way of seeing the world and the challenges that lie ahead.

Being the coordinator of the iCS policy and outreach portfolio has taught me many things about how to think about collaboration in practice, how to create synergies, and how to always have a keen sense for opportunities that partner organizations are not always aware of, or have easy access to. During these years, I felt myself trying to put together pieces that changed, moved, transformed and sometimes fitted perfectly into the great puzzle of decarbonization in Brazil.

Many people must think that being the program coordinator for a philanthropic organization is a comfortable position. Just the opposite! It is a very pleasurable and gratifying role, but also involves a significant amount of listening and sensitivity. We end up absorbing a great deal from organizations and people, in a constant effort to try to interpret the reality, what our partners think it is necessary to do, what we think needs to be done, and what we have no idea how to resolve, but which is all part of this. And yet still trying to make strategic sense of it all! It’s an enormous exercise!

I am leaving the iCS a better professional than when I joined and I feel that I was able to contribute a little to the strengthening and diversification of the ecosystem of organizations that operate in the Brazilian climate policy. I am going to a season of research on climate policy in practice in the German Parliament, with the support of the Humboldt Foundation. However, I will remain very committed to the cause and I hope to return to Brazil with new and more ideas on how to help make Brazil a less unequal, more democratic place, and which incorporates the climate agenda enduringly, broadly and strategically.

I thank you all for all the learning, as friendships and collaborations. At the moment, very special for iCS, for partners of different activities, for grantees, for members of the Council and for our financiers with whom we learned a lot in these years. But I want to say a special thanks

I thank especially Ana Toni, my mentor and partner. Without her generosity, support and encouragement, I would not have made it this far. I will be eternally grateful to you, Ana.

Many thanks and Auf Wiedersehen!

Alice Amorim