Rebuilding the Future In Coastal Ecuador

In continuation of our goal to offer skills training to Ecuadorians impacted by the devastating earthquake in 2016, Yachana Foundation has conducted two training sessions at our training center in the Ecuadorian Amazon.

These classes were highly successful in adding to the skills-base of people in rural communities of Ecuador. The male students involved in these sessions clearly appreciated the experiences they gained and stated that they found it extremely valuable. In addition to the trainings in masonry, we are looking at the development of appropriate technology that the people on the coast could use to further develop these technologies in their own communities.

Unfortunately the first two training classes turned out to very expensive to conduct by a non-profit foundation. We have done an analysis of the overall costs and other factors, including the 17-hour charter bus trip from the coast to Yachana. Based on this analysis we are looking at appropriate technologies and have decided to modify our approach to save costs in the future. We know we need to find a way to offer subsidized prices to the residents; for example only charging for the materials used. We are also looking at how to get a few of the young people from the region to come to Yachana, but in this case, for a 40 day stay, to learn welding and other skills that they can take back home as skills to contribute to their communities.

The two technology projects we have developed so far are: (1) a bicycle powered corn grinder, (2) a simple, inexpensive, corn de husker. Both are completed in a prototype form and we are now working to fine tune the details. These will be ready to offer in about a month for real-use. Since many of those affected by the earthquake live in rural settings and have chickens these two machines will help them provide food for their animals using improved, automated methods. Our goal is to continue developing additional ideas that can be used to improve life in our rural communities on the cost. We will be reporting on the results in subsequent updates.

Once again, thank you for your support to the Yachana Foundation to enable us to better train those affected by the quake.

The mission of the Yachana Foundation is education and training. There are many ways to achieve this and one of the most successful has been the courses for men from the coastal part of Ecuador who were impacted by the earthquake a year ago. The training was in masonry. To provide the best training we needed projects for them to actually work on; directly being involved in mixing the concrete and laying the blocks. With the help from these men, funds from donors and Global Giving we were able to complete a “crazy idea” that we have been thinking about for a long time. It was to create a sundial.

But a BIG sundial! Cristobal C. is the expert on sundials in Ecuador and the histories of the ancient cultures who relied on the sun for all of their agricultural activities. Cristobal came to Yachana with his survey equipment and laid out the exact location and orientation of what we wanted to build. All of it is built out of cement and block. It proved to be a wonderful training exercise for the men since all of the dimensions had to be very exact and the construction involved all aspects from concrete floors, foundations, analysis of the soil and the wall out of block. The sundial is 4.80 meters wide (15 feet), the floor is 6 meters long (19 feet) and the wall is 3 meters high (10 feet). There is a pipe that extends horizontally for 3 meters at the top of the wall on each side that is what actually casts the shadow on the various lines to determine time or month. It has to all be mathematically exact and oriented east/west perfectly to get the shadow to be over the equinox line on the specific dates.

In the first picture was taken 20 days after the equinox, you can see the pipe extending and the shadow on the wall. In the second picture, taken on March 20^th, you will see how the shadow is exactly over the vertical line we painted in the middle of the wall and floor to indicate the equinox.

It is from the funds that we have recieved via Global Giving and concerned donators that we we able to achieve this structure and share it with you.  Thank you for your contributions and support.