ACTIVITIES FOR ELDERLY IN THE ECUADORIAN AMAZON

As I have repeatedly mentioned, we have combined our project for the elderly with our program to protect the Amazon rainforest. It is so important to get this message of conservation out to the world, and we are succeeding through our emphasis on social media, principally right now, TikTok. But though we are reaching the world, we are also getting to the people who live in the region. The “crazy gringo” is well known locally and students and families are following me and what we are doing through our videos. We are doing them all in Spanish; the language of the people who are directly involved in the projection of their rainforest. To give you an example of the impact, we now have 581,000 FOLLOWERS! We have 4.1 million LIKES. And our videos have been viewed over 50 MILLION times! That is an impact! Thanks for your continued support of the work of Yachana. You can find the videos at www.tiktok.com/@yachana.com         Douglas

In our world today we all have to be flexible and innovative. Things for our elderly project were finally opening up, but now the Municipal government does not have the funds to cover their part of the program which included transportation and food. So, all we can do is hold that project in stand-by. But, that has not kept us from moving forward in other areas.

Conservation and education are two of the most important pillars of our foundation. We have been protecting 1,000 hectares (2,500 acres) of rainforest for nearly 30 years. We are now using this land in an interesting project called Footprint For Life (yachana.com/nature ) as a way to help raise funds without touching the forest to allow us to continue protecting this land and hopefully acquire additional rainforest for conservation. In education, we are offering a new program that will start early next year where students from a nearby school will be able to walk to Yachana after school for practical activities. Our philosophy is “learn by doing”, and this program will reinforce that. It will include everything from their fixing their own lunch in one of our kitchens to then be involved in agriculture, mechanics and learning English. Also, a new component of what we are doing in education is the production of a series of videos on life in the jungle and world climate issues in a simple format to understand. This is available on most of the social media platforms (yachana.com/videos). To focus on these directions, we have a new GlobalGiving project supporting the conservation, education and videos. (https://www.globalgiving.org/projects/saving-the-amazon-with-your-help/ ) So please check out this new GlobalGiving project and see how you can be involved. We have been able to modify and develop new ideas thanks to your interest. We hope you will continue to support the Yachana Foundation in our work to protect the Amazon. Remember, it is for our climate and the local people. Thanks, Douglas