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CREATION OF PROJECT CHIRIBOGA

In January of 1997, as a group of Ecuadorian volunteers, we decided to join together to organize this project. In the precinct of Chiriboga, we spoke with, the community in order to inform them of our intention. At the beginning, the people were not interested in our proposal; they didn't want to work and, even more they didn't want to stop cutting trees.

We had to initiate our work with the volunteers doing tasks unrelated to reforestation. We prepared the Project's house, we made contact with three governmental institutions and we presented our project to INEFAN, DFO, and the Ministry of Education and this is how we began to work. We were not able to break the ideology of the community from one day to the next. (You should understand that the population is very difficult and conflictive. They don't believe in anyone and even less in governmental organizations.) We initiated our work respecting their ideas and decided not to talk about deforestation at first. Instead, we formed the first small medicine cabinet with emergency medicine, and we built the first library for the children in the school. And with the support of the National Institute of Children and Family (INNFA), we obtained books and didactic materials, and we transported a medical encampment. With this work we succeeded little by little to earn the trust of the community. In sporadic meetings, we began to talk about the protection of the environment, and about the need to reforest the area. We also began to raise the consciousness of the families about the need to plant vegetables for their own benefit and for the improvement of their nutrition. In our next step, we succeeded in contacting a German organization called IBG Workcamps, founded in Stuttgart, Germany. They were interested in the project and sent a group of volunteers who arrived in Ecuador on August 14, 1998 and stayed until September 14, 1998. We initiated the first phase of reforestation in the area, planting 1800 trees (alisos and cedar) that were donated by the Provincial Counsel of Pichincha, a governmental organism. We also began a clean up of a large part of the riverbanks and began to construct platebands in order to generate the earth. This is how twenty percent of the population has integrated itself, little by little, in the participation of the reforestation of the area. With the support of the teacher and students of the Padre Menthen del Recinto Chiriboga School, vegetables were planted on 600 meters of land, which we named CULTIVOS ESTUDIANTILES. The products are exclusively for the consumption of the families of the children, achieving a manner of self-subsistence. We hope that you will consider participating and supporting this project; we are sure that in four years we will fulfill the goals and objectives outlined, for the community and the environment.

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