Help Rural Children in Ecuador Access Education

We are raising funds to help build two new classrooms (5k each), and access 3 new teachers for the Escuela de Educación Básica San Ramón, a pre-k through grade 8 school in La Y, Ecuador.

About Escuela de educación básica SAN RAMÓN:

For four decades, the people of La Y de la Laguna have fought to bring schools, health services, electricity, and roads to this remote, cloudforest region of coffee, cacao, and banana farmers. Due to their efforts, the Escuela de Educación Básica San Ramon has become a cornerstone of the community, providing pre-K to 8th grade education for students from 26 communities. But they’ve outgrown their school and are building new classrooms to accommodate more students and to add 9th and 10th grades.

We have a unique opportunity right now to help the Padres de Familia (parent-teacher organization) access hundreds of thousands of dollars of teacher salaries from the Ministry of Education: they just need to build two new classrooms and the ministry will provide permanent funding for a preschool teacher, a high school science and math teacher, and a staff person. In other words, if we raise $10,000 today, we will receive about half a million dollars in government contributions over the next thirty years. That’s a 50-to-1 match for your donation! (For now, we're aiming for 5k, but hope to increase to 10k as the interest grows)

A little more about La Y and why schooling matters: the communities surrounding La Y grow coffee, cacao, and bananas for the global food system, but many people live in economically precarious conditions and most of the region still lacks basic services such as potable water. Schooling provides a critical opportunity for young people to build the skills for improved farming methods and other off-farm jobs in local shops, offices, ecotourism, the healthcare sector, and more. Research also shows that basic education is critical for girls’ and women’s empowerment and long-term family health and well-being. The Escuela San Ramon faces two problems today: (1) a growing student population means that the classrooms are overcrowded and desks and materials are insufficient, and (2) students who want to continue to higher grades must go to the upper school in Herrera. The Herrera school is already reaching its capacity and it is a one-hour walk. For students who are already walking one to three hours to get to La Y, this additional burden is often too much, leading them to abandon their educations.

The Padres de Familia of La Y gathered enough resources to rebuild one classroom that was damaged in an earthquake, re-purposing the old health center roof and raising funds locally in the community. Now they need two more schoolrooms plus 200 desks, chalkboards, and other basic supplies. The Ecuadorian Ministry of Education has promised that, if the school is able to build two additional classrooms, they will receive a permanent preschool teacher, physics/math teacher for 8th-10th grades, and a staff person. (This is a common practice: they have done this in the past, as has the Ministry of Health.)

More about who we are:

I'm Karin. I'm an anthropologist, and I've been working with rural communities of La Laguna in coastal Ecuador for the past 20 years. I've lived there for years at a time, visit regularly, and I've worked on diverse projects ranging from improving health services (yay Subcentro de La Y de La Laguna!), to building support for survivors of intimate partner violence, and much more.

Together with a diverse group of people, including my husband Brian (also an anthropologist), students from Wake Forest University who visited the community in February 2023, the local town council (Comite ProMejora), PTA (Padres de Familia San Ramon) and community leaders & parents Gissela Zambrano, Matilde Zambrano, and Xavier Aguavil, we are raising money for two new classrooms.

Fundraising is happening here on GoFundMe and through Bingo and other fundraising in the community itself. Community members are also donating their time and labor via a Minga (shared, communal volunteer work) and by visiting local authorities to continue applying political pressure.

Note: this is not an official Minga Foundation fundraiser, just one launched by members who still have a personal connection with La Y.

Existing school building

Students packed into existing classrooms

Volunteers build the newest classroom. Community organizing has been successful in the region largely because the community still uses “mingas” -- volunteer work parties in which all families pitch in to support community goals.

The newest classroom in La Y, built in May 2023 using funds raised in the community and volunteer labor. This classroom was built for less than $2,000 because it re-used the foundations of a classroom destroyed in the 2016 earthquake.

Student travel to school is often complicated by weather and road conditions. Although this is one of the best roads in the region (linking La Y to the high school in Herrera), heavy rains in May 2023 caused several landslides like this one, which made bus travel impossible. Roads from distant villages to La Y are in much worse shape, often becoming muddy slogs during the rainy season.

After more than twenty years of use, many school desks need to be replaced.