Nelly Gordpour and Nolan DeBrowner won the Clinical Legal Education Association's Outstanding Clinical Team Award for their work in the Amazon, under the supervision of Professor Jocelyn Getgen Kestenbaum, Director of the Benjamin B. Ferencz Atrocity Prevention Clinic. Dean Melanie Leslie surprised the students with a congratulatory message during their final Zoom class of the semester on April 30. "Congratulations to Nelly and Nolan for their outstanding work!" she said. "I hope this helps us remember what's possible. The skills you've learned here will help you so well."

"We led a two-day human rights strategic advocacy workshop and media communications training with the Amazon Task Force of the Brazilian Federal Prosecutors Office, which is charged with prosecuting environmental crimes, such as illegal deforestation, illegal gold mining, land grabbing, and violence in the Amazon region," said Nelly Gordpour.

"It was a pleasure engaging with our local partners and vibrant civil society on the ground who are passionate about these issues, and to be invited to provide technical assistance to help bolster the capacity of the Task Force, which is severely impeded by the current administration's hostile attitude towards human rights. I am honored to have the opportunity to contribute to strengthen positive reform in the country and to have received the CLEA Outstanding Clinical Student Award. I look forward to our continued global cooperation towards fulfilling these human rights objectives in the future."

DeBrowner said, "We implemented a messaging and media training to a group of Brazillian federal prosecutors charged with fighting environmental crimes in the Amazon. They are understaffed and beset from all sides by a hostile presidential administration and aggressive criminal loggers supported by international business. I am happy that our work contributed in a positive way to the prosecutors' own sense of possibility, and the tools at their disposal."