Education for children in Ecuador

I hope all is well. It has been a great few months on the projects.

Graduations marked the end of the school year with our six local teachers playing an important role in their education, especially as we continue to try to recoup the losses of crucial teaching time due to the pandemic.There were also graduations from pre-school into the main primary school. 

Classes will restart the new school year in a couple of months when we will continue with our local teachers as well as providing some school materials and helping out with the daily food programme where we can. We will continue with paying for the internet as well as covering some maintenance costs including painting which will be undertaken in September. We have already provided the materials and the members of the community got together for a minga to build a wall to protect the school.

We will continue investing in new sustainable plans like Plan Moo where furhter purchases have been made this year, as well as the birth of a few calves!

On top of our educational support we will be undertaking further work in other rural Andean communities starting with Azabí, an hour further into the Andes from where we currently work.

Azabí is a forgotten tiny hamlet of about thirty families in the cloud forest which is only reachable by dirt track. We started by delivering essential food supplies for the elderly and disabled members of the community.

Azabí is also where we have implemented a large-scale Plan Huerta, the first harvest of which was recently undertaken with an excellent yield from the 4 acre (1.5 hectare) piece of land. This will economically help several members of the community as well as sustainably cover the costs of Plan Moo management.

We will be celebrating 20 years working in Ecuador in May/June 2025 with a Charity Challenge where apart from climbing volcanoes we will spend a day doing community work. For information on the challenges and indeed our work please do contact me on dom@thephoenixprojects.org

Thank you all as ever for your generous donations to the projects, without which none of the above would have been achieved and would not be possible in the future. 

Have a great September

cheers

Links:

• Ecuador 20th Anniversary Charity Challenge

I hope all is well with you. It has been a great couple of months on the projects thanks to your generous donations. 

Our six local teachers continue giving classes in the school. Four of the teachers are part of our University programme where we help them with the cost of their studies in exchange for them teaching in the school. With this hands-on experience they should be able to find employment with the State once they graduate.

Mother's Day was celebrated in the school in May with lots of traditional dance, gifts and food. As is tradition the fathers do all the preparation and cooking for the mothers. This year the elderly members of the communities were invited too so they could all be involved with the activities.

Plan Moo is coming along well with purchasing of cows restarted. The current herd is growing with several previous cows into their second calving. The sales of milk are shared between the local family and helping to cover teachers’ costs. 

The land has been prepared and the seeds have been sewn in our 2½ acre (1 hectare) Plan Huerta bean crop. Leftover dried grass from the land clearing remains to protect the young shoots from the cold and the rain. Proceeds from this plan will be shared amongst the community who help out on the land and management costs of Plan Moo. 

For those of you in the UK we will be taking on the London Bridges Charity Challenge once again on Saturday 3rd August followed by a reunion in a pub. We plan to walk the fifteen bridges and 12 miles (20km) from Tower Bridge to Putney Bridge where we will have a Phoenix reunion in a pub there. 

As we tick off the bridges we will also take on the Phoenix treasure hunt to find objects and landmarks that are associated with our work in Latin America so feel free to bring the family too. Please let us know by emailing me on dom@thephoenixprojects.org if you are interested in joining us from the start, halfway or even just for the reunion in Putney. 

We still have extra spaces for the Patagonia Challenge in November so if you are interested please do let us know as we will need to know final numbers by September and for those of you with Instagram we recently started to update our account once again after a couple of years’ hiatus so please do seek us out on phoenix_flying_2020 

Have a great June

Cheers

Links:

• London Bridges Charity Challenge