One of our main motives in our program is to create community - a group of motivated individuals working together to reach a common goal. Past traveling students and teachers can likely agree with the statement that there is a powerful difference in the strength of connection between students when they first touch down in the Ecuador airport versus when they re-pack their bags and say their goodbyes. By the time they return home, students arrive with an entire team of new friends both at home and across the globe - community has been created by their shared experiences learning and working together towards a common goal.
This community that has been created by the 15,000 students that were involved with our former organization, GSE, is the reason that we are still able to push forward and support our group of local youth leaders. We would like to thank the 71 individuals and families that have chosen to support us financially as we fight to continue our Environmental Education + Youth Leadership in Bahia de Caraquez, Ecuador! (Learn more here - Support our GoFundMe!)
We are so grateful for your support, and ask that you please continue to help us reach our financial goal as our program grows, and as we work to rebuild our program and community!
PROGRESS REPORT
While it may not seem like it due to lack of posts (thank your for your patience), we have been very busy! Not only have we begun construction of our Vivero, our Tree Nursery, but we have had the chance to work with four different groups of volunteers! A couple of weeks ago we teamed up with a group of Californian tourists, volunteers from England (Thank you Planet Drum!), and local environmental university students to plant trees at our worksite and paint murals.
Enjoy the photos below to see our volunteers macheteing, hole-digging, planting, and watering our 30 fruit trees that now border the Eloy Alfaro elementary and high school!
As our organization pushes through our new growing pains, we are incredibly grateful to witness experiences such as these that allow people of different ages, different countries of origin, and unfamiliar languages to come together to achieve our common goal of environmental stewardship. While our one of our biggest challenges remains developing community in a city that lacks infrastructure, wealth equality and supportive programming, we look forward to new opportunities to collaborate and create for the greater good of the planet - which includes future collaboration with Eloy Alfaro students and local NGO Walking Palms! Please, like, comment and share our campaign as we fight to rebuild our Environmental Education and Youth Leadership program, the Bahia Eco-Club!
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