News from Esperanza

During the first few months of the year we have continued with the Esperanza project.

- Course in mathematics at the secondary school in Gahuijón. Thanks to our volunteer Nick Maxwell we have colaborated with the local maths teacher.

- Hairdressing course in Esperanza. Lots of people have shown an interest in this course. The objective is to train up some of the people from the village so that they can provide a service to the other villagers in Esperanza (at the moment they have to go to Riobamba to have their hair cut) while at the same time providing them with an income.

- Kniting course. This course was started by Enrica in January and was particulary succesful. For this reason we decided to continue it fortnightly with the help of Elsa.

- School vegetable plot. At the moment there are 7 schools participating in this project. The objective is to provide a space for school children to grow local products organically and to reintroduce some of the vegetables forgotten to the community.
The aim of this project is to improve the diet of the local inhabitants. The photos below show the school children from Esperanza gathering some of the vegetables in April 2009.