Education for rural Amazon communities

Sumak Allpa is an education center for students and families from across Ecuador. Originally the site of an elementary school where we assisted Ecuadorian teachers with English lessons and other activities, the island has now become an interactive education site for students from schools throughout the Amazon. We and Sumak Allpa staff receive student groups as well as national and international tourists, educating them on the primate program, conservation, ecology, local flora and fauna, and dangers and threats now facing the species of the Amazon. 

The original elementary school has now grown so large that it had to be moved to the mainland community of Loma del Tigre to accommodate all the students, but Sumak Allpa continues to support the school and was spend at least 2 days a week teaching there alongside the Ecuadorian professors. The move has proved to be a success, as Sumak Allpa has now also been able to connect to older students, to form a youth environmental group, called Sumak Allpa Maltakuna Wankurina in the student’s native Kichwa language.

The youth have already organized their first major project, a tree nursery and reforestation program using native cedar and mahogany trees. The students, with the help of Sumak Allpa and with financing from GVI Amazon Charitable Trust, solicited and completed a series of workshops with the National Agriculture and Livestock Research Institute (INIAP) on topics such as basic reforestation principles, agroforestry, seedling and tree nursery construction and planting and nursery management. The project is now getting underway, with lots of hard work and research by the students to ensure its success.