Help a remote school in the Amazon
Donation protected
Proyecto Suwa needs your Help to equip a primary school deep in the Amazon Rainforest.
We’re asking for books, pens, notebooks, educational games and many more resources but not only that. We also need your help to reach our goal for a better education.
Suwa is a small indigenous community located deep in the heart of the Ecuadorian Amazon rainforest where there are no roads, no electricity and where time passes at a different pace.
The Achuar people live in harmony with their land, and the immensity of the jungle is the witness of their rich and ancestral culture. The Achuar’s wisdom is rooted in the spiritual belief and importance of dreams and visions. In their fight to protect their lands against oil companies, they work hard to preserve their community and their time-honoured subsistence hunting and fishing.
Understanding the importance of the role of the new generation in front of the power and threat of multinational corporations, Suwa is instead using education to ensure their future.
Their main goals are:
Protect their land and their culture from the ever closer spectre of oil and other resource extraction .
Improve the literacy of the community’s 35 schoolchildren, to make them able to face and build their own future, as well as giving them the opportunity to expand their learning and personal development.
Develop the kids’ English to prepare for the inevitable onset of globalisation, and the political and environmental threats that poses.
With an education, the ability to adequately read and write, as well as communicate in the world language, the future Achuar leaders will be better-placed to protect their indigenous rights and their community on the world stage.
Since Suwa requested our help in December 2013, my partner and I have worked as 100% independent, unpaid volunteers, to provide materials and organise the recruitment and the dispatching of qualified volunteer teachers to Suwa.
English classes started in Suwa in February 2015. After a few months, we took the decision to also assist with the children’s reading, writing and basic arithmetic. Since then, 25 volunteers have taught in Suwa, helping the kids to talk to visiting tourists from the nearby ecolodge, describe their history, culture and artesanía (handicrafts), and organise community events. The children have written letters to previous volunteers, participated in art and music classes, and will soon have a drama workshop. The adults have also shown an interest, and are studying English in the afternoons.
However, this is just the beginning.
With the help of our last crowdfunding campaign, with both events in London and online fundraising, we were able to kit out a solar-powered modest cabin for the volunteers, who are clearly the heart and soul of this project. We also provided various educational resources for the school but sadly, in a village with no mains electricity, no printing and few books, there is still a definite lack of materials, as well as more kids entering the school, so we need to find funds once again.
This is where you come in.
We’re asking for donations, no matter how small, to help sustain our project. Donations will be spent on the following:
a. The primary school:
New mini white boards and markers
Flashcards, arts/crafts materials
Stationery, notebooks
Spanish and English reading books, dictionaries
Games, both educational and otherwise
A modest library/study area
Various basic teaching Resources
b. A nurse’s station:
Toothbrushes, toothpaste
First aid medical kit (plasters, bandages, rubbing alcohol, etc)
c. The volunteers’ house:
-New mosquito nets (the old ones are breaking)-Bedsheets
- Solar panels and bateries
-Kitchen utensils, food storage/Tupperware (there’s no fridge, but there are plenty of animals)
-Tools for working on the school chakra (vegetable patch)
Please, take a moment out of your day to support a fragile and unique community who just want to have a fighting chance in this changing world.
Every donation helps and each one can make a difference.
Thank you for your kindness!
Alan & Sam
Facebook: @proyectosuwa
If you are interested in volunteering with us, please click here to have more details about our available positions: http://bit.ly/2q66PSJ
We’re asking for books, pens, notebooks, educational games and many more resources but not only that. We also need your help to reach our goal for a better education.
Suwa is a small indigenous community located deep in the heart of the Ecuadorian Amazon rainforest where there are no roads, no electricity and where time passes at a different pace.
The Achuar people live in harmony with their land, and the immensity of the jungle is the witness of their rich and ancestral culture. The Achuar’s wisdom is rooted in the spiritual belief and importance of dreams and visions. In their fight to protect their lands against oil companies, they work hard to preserve their community and their time-honoured subsistence hunting and fishing.
Understanding the importance of the role of the new generation in front of the power and threat of multinational corporations, Suwa is instead using education to ensure their future.
Their main goals are:
Protect their land and their culture from the ever closer spectre of oil and other resource extraction .
Improve the literacy of the community’s 35 schoolchildren, to make them able to face and build their own future, as well as giving them the opportunity to expand their learning and personal development.
Develop the kids’ English to prepare for the inevitable onset of globalisation, and the political and environmental threats that poses.
With an education, the ability to adequately read and write, as well as communicate in the world language, the future Achuar leaders will be better-placed to protect their indigenous rights and their community on the world stage.
Since Suwa requested our help in December 2013, my partner and I have worked as 100% independent, unpaid volunteers, to provide materials and organise the recruitment and the dispatching of qualified volunteer teachers to Suwa.
English classes started in Suwa in February 2015. After a few months, we took the decision to also assist with the children’s reading, writing and basic arithmetic. Since then, 25 volunteers have taught in Suwa, helping the kids to talk to visiting tourists from the nearby ecolodge, describe their history, culture and artesanía (handicrafts), and organise community events. The children have written letters to previous volunteers, participated in art and music classes, and will soon have a drama workshop. The adults have also shown an interest, and are studying English in the afternoons.
However, this is just the beginning.
With the help of our last crowdfunding campaign, with both events in London and online fundraising, we were able to kit out a solar-powered modest cabin for the volunteers, who are clearly the heart and soul of this project. We also provided various educational resources for the school but sadly, in a village with no mains electricity, no printing and few books, there is still a definite lack of materials, as well as more kids entering the school, so we need to find funds once again.
This is where you come in.
We’re asking for donations, no matter how small, to help sustain our project. Donations will be spent on the following:
a. The primary school:
New mini white boards and markers
Flashcards, arts/crafts materials
Stationery, notebooks
Spanish and English reading books, dictionaries
Games, both educational and otherwise
A modest library/study area
Various basic teaching Resources
b. A nurse’s station:
Toothbrushes, toothpaste
First aid medical kit (plasters, bandages, rubbing alcohol, etc)
c. The volunteers’ house:
-New mosquito nets (the old ones are breaking)-Bedsheets
- Solar panels and bateries
-Kitchen utensils, food storage/Tupperware (there’s no fridge, but there are plenty of animals)
-Tools for working on the school chakra (vegetable patch)
Please, take a moment out of your day to support a fragile and unique community who just want to have a fighting chance in this changing world.
Every donation helps and each one can make a difference.
Thank you for your kindness!
Alan & Sam
Facebook: @proyectosuwa
If you are interested in volunteering with us, please click here to have more details about our available positions: http://bit.ly/2q66PSJ
Organizer
Samira Ma
Organizer