Education Ecuador Project #1766

Education for children in Ecuador

by Fly The Phoenix

Project Report | May 28, 2025
The latest from Fly The Phoenix in Ecuador

By Dom Williams | Founder and Director

One of our local teachers

The school year in Ecuador comes to a close next month with graduations. Our local teachers have done a sterling job once again with all the students on course to pass their exams. We aim to continue with our local teachers for the new school year starting in August.

We have been implementing a Plan Cuy sustainable plan thanks to the donations raised from this month’s 20th Anniversary Charity Challenge. We purchased all the materials to build a large Cuy House where guinea pigs will be reared and sold with the income raised going towards some of the monthly costs of the school. Members of the community got together for a couple of mingas to help with the ground preparation and construction which will be finished during the community day as part of the Challenge.

The school vegetable garden we introduced in January is beginning to show results with cabbage, beetroot and carrots being able to be grown at high altitude. These will be essential for the children’s daily food programme. Harvests are underway with our large-scale Plan Huertos we introduced in 2024 which help cover some costs of our sustainable plan management whilst helping local families.

As is tradition, Fanesca was prepared in the school with extras taken home to be shared with the families. This is a soup made during Semana Santa (Easter) and made from a variety of ingredients including beans, grains, fish, eggs and many others. Pawkar Raymi and Muchuk Nina were celebrated giving thanks to Pachamama (Mother Earth) for the flowering of crops and the upcoming harvests of grains.

The Charity Challenge to celebrate our 20th Anniversary gets underway in a few days as we will attempt to summit Fuya Fuya (4,260m / 14,000ft), Imbabura (4,609m / 15,120ft) and Cotacachi (4,944m / 15,580ft) volcanoes as well as hiking Cuicocha Lake and spending a day in the community. We’ll tell you all about it in the next update in a couple of months!

Thank you so much for your fantastic support for the projects, it really does mean so much for the families in the communities. We’ll update you more in a couple of months.

Cheers

Plan Huerto harvest

Twenty years ago!

Plan Cuy construction

Plan Cuy area

Vegetable garden coming along

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Mar 25, 2025
Donation matching today for Phoenix Ecuador

By Dom Williams | Founder and Director

Music lessons

I hope all is well. It has been a great few months on the projects and to make it even better, GlobalGiving will be matching all individual donations to this page up to $50 by 50% between today, Tuesday 25th March to Friday 28th March. It would be fantastic if you could donate and take advantage of this extra matching and thank you in advance.

Classes have resumed for the second half of the school year and work has begun with the school vegetable garden which will provide continuous food for the daily meals. Not everything can be successfully grown at 3,500m (11,500ft) so they have planted cabbages, carrots and beetroot. It is 100% organic using animal fertilizer.

Music is such an important part of the curriculum and one of our local teachers takes all the classes. The students not only learn how to play the instruments, which include wind powered keyboards, they also learn how to read music.

The first harvest of our second large bean Plan Huerto has taken place. Most of the proceeds are currently being reinvested into expanding the programme and replanting the current plans.

We will be celebrating our 20th Anniversary in Ecuador between Saturday 31st May and 7th June with a volcano charity challenge as well as spending a day in the community doing some hands-on work as mentioned above. Each volcano will be undertaken in a day so participants who want to skip any and stay back in Otavalo are able to do so.

If you worked with us in the past and fancy coming back to reminisce or just want to climb some volcanoes whilst getting involved in a charity challenge whilst helping the projects please do let us know by replying to this newsletter. We will need to confirm numbers by the end of March.

Many thanks for all your support for the projects and we’ll be in touch in the next couple of months with a further update.

Cheers

School vegetable garden

Plan Huerto harvest

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Dec 14, 2024
Looking ahead to 2025 in Ecuador

By Dom Williams | Founder and Director

Food

I hope all is well with you. It has been a great month on the projects with the first half of the school year coming to a close with a short break over Christmas and restarting in the new year.

We celebrated Day of the Dead with Colada Morada a fruit-based hot drink served with home-made bread. During the year we contribute to many cultural events which invariably include food!

We continue to expand Plan Huerto by sewing seeds taken from the first harvest in a new area which will benefit even more families. The initial Plan Huerto has been replanted for the second crop.

The parents got together for a minga for some major school maintenance. We provided materials to help with the work which included filling in the cracks and removing fungus from the classroom walls. They were also able to finish the wiring to install lights in the new storeroom, plugging leaks in the roof and replacing and painting doors.

In 2025 we will continue with our three Phoenix local teachers, two of whom are University students we are helping with their educational costs whilst gaining experience of actual teaching. In the school we will continue to pay for the internet as well as extra food for the meals and some classroom materials when they are needed. As always we will celebrate cultural events including fanesca at Easter, Mother’s Day and colada morada for the Day of the Dead.

With the sustainable plans we will continue to expand Plan Moo which will help cover teachers’ costs in the future. Our aim is to purchase ten more cows over the next year or so. Expansion of Plan Huerto will continue with two separate projects already providing income in two communities as well as helping to cover Plan Moo management.

We will be celebrating our 20th Anniversary in Ecuador in May with a volcano charity challenge as well as spending a day in the community doing some hands-on work! If you worked with us in the past and fancy coming back to reminisce or just want to climb some volcanoes whilst getting involved in a charity challenge whilst helping the projects please do let us know by emailing me on dom@thephoenixprojects.org

Thank you all so much for your support this year which has allowed us to achieve so much and we hope you can continue to support the projects in the future - we have so much still to do!

Have a great 2025

Cheers

The school kitchen

Plan Huerto

Preparing the land

Maintenance

Links:

Phoenix Ecuador Volcano Charity Challenge 2025

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