Brazil – Carnaval

The Need

In Brazil’s Amazon region, the World Health Organization has reported a rise in health issues linked to basic hygiene, water storage, sanitation, and insect control. These challenges, compounded by significant health disparities, highlight the influence of social determinants of health. Diseases such as malaria, leishmaniasis, tuberculosis, and leprosy disproportionately affect those in lower socioeconomic classes and without access to formal education.

Brazil’s innovative floating healthcare system, launched in 2013, operates 96 boats serving 83 municipalities across the Amazon and Pantanal regions, bringing vaccines, screenings, and urgent care to remote communities at least six times a year. Despite challenges—only 23 boats currently operate regularly due to funding and maintenance constraints—this model shows that with creativity and commitment, geographic and logistical barriers can be overcome to uphold the fundamental right to healthcare.

International Medical Relief (IMR) partners with local communities to address these gaps through both direct medical care and sustainable health education. On this mission, volunteers will care for patients with treatable and often preventable conditions, including malaria, dengue fever, leishmaniasis, and tuberculosis, as well as non-communicable diseases such as hypertension, diabetes, alcoholism, and smoking-related illness. Volunteers may also treat cases of snake and piranha bites, fungal infections, and ear infections.

Education is central to IMR’s work, empowering locals to protect their own health and care for their loved ones. This mission will place special emphasis on dentistry—meeting the high demand for care across all age groups—and on women’s health, providing general care for women and infants while strengthening the knowledge and skills of local midwives.

Our Work

International Medical Relief (IMR) began serving Brazil in 2010, delivering community health training, medical treatments, medical supplies and equipment, and operating clinics in partnership with local providers. Since then, we have served more than tens of thousands of patients with the dedication of IMR staff and volunteers.

Our care often extends beyond clinic walls. By making house calls, IMR teams gain valuable insight into the daily lives, environments, and challenges of the patients we serve. This allows us to provide health education tailored to each community’s specific needs—ensuring that our impact is both immediate and sustainable.

Today, IMR continues to provide long-term healthcare and education in Brazil, working to strengthen resilience in remote communities. As climate change further isolates these populations and brings new health challenges, the role of Brazil’s floating clinics becomes even more critical. These clinics are not only treating patients—they are preserving entire communities and ensuring that distance does not determine who lives and who dies.

The floating healthcare centers of the Amazon exemplify what medical humanitarianism can be: not just a response to crises, but an innovative, enduring solution that brings dignity, hope, and healing to the world’s most vulnerable—one river community at a time.

With diligent planning and preparation, IMR is dedicated to ensuring that specific goals are met on our missions, each in correlation to the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals 3, 6, and 17.

IMR works to elevate vulnerable populations through shoulder-to-shoulder care with our local partners, creating workforce density, and a cadre of future healthcare and public health leaders in association to UNSDG 3: Good Health & Wellbeing.

Our medical mission teams also work toward UNSDG 6: Clean Water & Sanitation by supporting and strengthening the participation of local communities in improving their water quality, and installing water filtration systems that supply communities with clean drinking water and providing education on hydration and hygiene.

In correlation with UNSDG 17: Partnerships for the Goals, our organization works in collaboration and at the request of local hosts where we are under their direct influence and affluence. IMR never goes into a country without a formal invitation where there is a great community need for medical or dental care, and health education.

This Mission

During your time in Brazil, you will experience the heart of the Amazon—living aboard a riverboat that serves as a floating clinic. Each day will bring breathtaking sunrises and sunsets over the Amazon River, encounters with remarkable biodiversity, and the opportunity to serve in communities where access to healthcare is rare or nonexistent.

The demographic density in the Amazon is low, and many remote villages lack even basic medical services. Your team will travel to one or more riverside community, bringing essential care directly to their doorsteps where the need is the greatest. Converted riverboats—packed with IMR medical equipment and staffed by IMR volunteers—will become both your home and your transportation to clinic for the week.

This mission focuses on both treatment and education. You will provide acute medical care for conditions ranging from infectious diseases to injuries, alongside preventive care to help reduce future illness. Dentistry is always a major focus, with high demand for services from patients of all ages. Women’s healthcare is another priority, including general women’s and infant care, as well as training and support for local midwives.

You’ll also engage in vital health education, empowering locals to care for themselves and their families. Your work will be guided by public health data from past IMR missions, ensuring that your efforts are targeted to the community’s most pressing needs.

These remote communities will welcome you warmly, often with open arms and a heartfelt “obrigado” (“thank you” in Portuguese). You will be working under challenging conditions—adapting to environmental limitations, responding to medical emergencies, and addressing new challenges such as  severe droughts and forest fires causing respiratory illnesses.  Mental health is an issue due to prolonged isolation, making your care and comprehensive conversations with the community members even more critical.

Over the course of the week, your vessels will visit one or more isolated communities, providing everything from basic acute care to preventive services. The impact is immediate and profound—restoring health, building resilience, and bringing hope to some of the most forgotten corners of the world.

Lodging/Transportation

You and your team will live on a five star, world-class boat and set up a full medical and dental clinic in remote villages along the water’s edge. Without IMR, these villages have no other means of healthcare. Upon returning to your private riverboat each night, you will be welcomed with a feast of local cuisine and opportunities for stargazing, crocodile hunting, hammock swinging, and much, much more. After a dinner of local delicacies and remarkable desserts, the boat will make ready for your departure to the next clinic site while you take a hot shower under the stars and prepare for a wonderful night’s sleep without bugs or cares. Enthusiastic crowds will gather at every stop, and children will peer through every crack as they anxiously wait their turn for care and hugs from the IMR team. Enthusiastic crowds will gather at every stop, and children will peer through every crack as they anxiously wait their turn for care and hugs from the IMR team.

Highlights

Simply being in the Amazon, living on a riverboat, and caring for people with very limited access to care may be enough, but there is still more to see! It’s Carnaval time! Carnaval in Rio de Janeiro may be the most famous, but Carnaval in Manaus is the most unique. This celebration combines Carnaval with the Amazonas indigenous people’s Boi Bumba festival. You’ll see traditional Carnaval costumes integrated with indigenous costumes and dance customs from Amazonas communities for a celebration you’ll never forget.

You and your team will also have some time to discover Manaus, including the renowned opera house, Teatro Amazonas (the #1 rated place to visit in Manaus according to TripAdvisor!), the handicrafts market, and the Rio Negro Palace. You may also have the opportunity to explore the rainforest and “hunt” for caimans, explore the villages where you will work, and experience life aboard, steaming up and down the Amazon. Every IMR team member who has “taken the boat” will tell you – this trip is best!

Don’t leave your camera home on this trip! There is a beautiful photo in your future – sunrises and sunsets on the Amazon, pink dolphins (watch the river for smooth shiny water and you’ll be sure to find them), wonderful riverfront stores and homes, and beautiful, laughing children and families!

Extend Your Stay

You’re journeying across the globe. Why not extend your stay in Brazil to experience some of the top tourist attractions of the amazing city of Rio de Janeiro? Join us on an exclusive trip extension provided by our partner, Worldwide Navigators! Contact Worldwide Navigators to book an extension or get more information.

Highlights:

• Go inland! You’ll find streets lined with luxury fashion boutiques, fine dining restaurants, and bars playing Bossa Nova.
• Summit Sugarloaf Mountain, which boasts wildly spectacular views of Guanabara Bay and the city of Rio.
• Experience Brazilian culture with a percussion class, samba dancing, and dinner with a festival-themed show.

See the Extensions tab on this page for details on this amazing experience!

Itinerary at a Glance