Newsletter: ¡The Never Ending Summer!
- Joshua Holmes
- Oct 10, 2024
- 3 min read
The following is an El Terreno newsletter published on 10th October 2024
Have you heard? Ecuador has been suffering from a historic drought and forest fires have raged throughout the country. It's highlighting just how urgent sustainable development is to prepare low-income communities for climate change.
After a busy summer, we're currently putting our focus into a school farming project and fundraising initiatives to scale interns' previous success. But we still have loads of summer memories to share with you in the next few newsletters!
Joshua Holmes
Founder, El Terreno
New Gender Equality Program
Gender roles have always played a function in healthy indigenous societies; they each provide an equal, yet different, contribution to the community.
In today's patriarchal society, however, 'male' roles generally hold more power and financial reward than those of women. Consequently, the women in communities surrounding Atandahua face systemic violence, oppression and inequality.
Until now, we haven't addressed this sensitive topic directly. But when we received an inspiring group of young interns who wanted to work on the issue this summer, we got to work!
To begin with, interns performed an in-depth research project into the core gender issues, which resulted in several school workshops with local doctors and a project fundraising proposal, on the topics of reproductive health and career pathways.
In the presentations below, you'll hear about how these teams of changemakers made a positive difference to women and girls in rural Ecuadorian communities.
Due to this success, we've decided to launch a new Gender and Reproductive Equality internship programme - ¿could you be the next intern to help empower local women?
"Doing my internship at El Terreno in the rural Andes was an extremely valuable learning experience. Thanks to the human-centered character of my internship, I got to work with many locals, and discovered new methods of participatory research. I appreciate the most, the variety of skills that my internship have taught me. Besides conducting my qualitative research, I made myself to learn Spanish faster, networked with various stakeholders, hold a workshop with teenage girls and improved my graphic design skills.
Working with the community and learning about the challenges they encounter was a strong motivation during my internship. I loved engaging with the local stakeholders and realizing possible solutions with my teammates. Although, the topic of my research was at times challenging, I enjoyed every day that I worked on my project thanks to the friendly atmosphere at El Terreno. And waking up every day with the view of Chimborazo is pretty awesome too!"
- Anna, Czech republic
If you want to make a difference through a hands-on project, while developing your professional skills alongside trained professionals, get in touch to arrange what an personalised internship might look like for you.
Getting Stuck In
This summer also featured our second volunteer group from Aston College in the UK through EcuaExplora - an amazing group of motivated students learning everything from mathematics to engineering.
They joined us for two impactful weeks to take Gina's cabin one step closer to completion - we are so close! - as well as the plan and foundations of a grey water filtration systems. Thanks for everyone who came for making it an amazing experience.
Tales from the Jungle
We find visiting other inspiring projects essential for our own learning, and love sending our interns there too to learn new ways of doing things!
Earlier this year, we visited Pambiliño and Yakunina farms in the Chocó valley in the northwest jungle of Ecuador. For over a decade, it's been home to a biocorredor featuring a forest school, organic agriculture and eco-tourism initiatives, to inspire the community and protect one of the most biodiverse regions on the planet.
Congratulations to all those involved at Mashpi - que sigan adelante! If you're looking to experience the grand diversity that exists here in Ecuador we highly recommend a visit.
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