Project Description
Help us crowdfund to provide essential programs and educational support for Piñán's first-ever class of high school graduates. Your contributions will help us fund the programs they need to continue their studies and become community leaders.
Four years ago, when we started working with this remote Ecuadorean community, these students had no access to high school and little support in way of teachers, supplies or infrastructure.
Through projects designed with student and community participation, we’ve successfully begun running high school classes—the first ever in Piñán. The new programming has been accompanied by new equipment, new infrastructure enrolment of all youth in the community.
Now these students need our help more than ever!
They need the essential academic programs and support that will give them the opportunity not just to finish high school, but to study at universities and trades schools next year, and to learn new skills and languages. These are the developments they’ll need to bring success, sustainability, and autonomy to their community.
This crowdfund will help us provide:
• Pre-university enrolment courses
• English language classes
• A fund towards university studies
• Classroom construction
These programs will give the community’s young women the opportunity to pursue careers, and it will support all youth to become local, bilingual guides, agricultural engineers, veterinarians and environmentalists.
Our mission is to help these students become the next leaders in their community and to begin bringing local, sustainable, meaningful jobs to Piñán.
Piñán's Story
We have been working with the community of Piñán for the past four years. Piñán is a small village located high up in the northern Andes of Ecuador. The community includes about 220 people, or 40 families, who are descendants of the Kichwa Indigenous peoples of the area.
Theirs is one of the last communities in Ecuador still affected by the colonial farm system such that they don’t own the land on which they live and to which they are the rightful owners. Livelihoods are scarce, and poverty is common. No one in the community has ever been able to study or graduate from basic schooling in this community.
The remoteness and absence of opportunities in the village means that most people have to leave to find jobs. They may be away form their family and friends for months at a time, or permanently. This is the reality that the approximately 90 youth living in Piñán currently face.
Our Achievements
Our mission is to help Piñán’s youth have complete access to the public education system and to necessary educational infrastructure within their own community. We’ve been working to get teachers, equipment, school supplies and classrooms in place to make this a reality.
So far, your support has had a tremendous impact in what we’ve been able to achieve in Piñán.
With last year’s crowdfund, we managed to:
- Build the community’s first high school classroom
- Equip the classroom with new computers and a projector
- Install a satellite internet connection for the school
- Hire two high school teachers for the year
- Build a dormitory for teachers to stay in while they work in the community
These project milestones allowed Piñán to run their first high school classes and to give students in the community a way to graduate.
How to Help Students Become Community Leaders
Now these students need our help for the next step!
We need to develop the essential academic programs and support that will give students the opportunity not just to finish high school, but also to study at post secondary institutions next year. This will allow them to learn the skills and languages they will need to bring a successful and sustainable future to Piñán.
2021’s crowdfund will support the following programs:
1. Pre-university courses
Students will need to complete these courses to enrol in university after graduating from high school. The courses prepare them in the specific subjects that will be on their university placement tests, which all students must take at the end of their graduating year.
2. English language classes
Learning English is a crucial step for those students who will work with tourists in their community. Some of the funding will go to cover the costs associated with the new English Language program that we are running in Piñán.
3. Graduating class tour
The graduating class is planning a tour to visit universities and other community-run tourism ventures around Ecuador to learn about university programs, and to develop ideas and connections for Piñán's own community-run tourism venture.
4. Guiding and Tourism Certification Program
Piñán’s guiding and tourism education program will be a local opportunity for students to
study a post-secondary trade in their own community. This classroom and field program will
be delivered locally, run in collaboration with CAN and other Ecuadorian organizations and
universities. It will give graduating students the opportunity to be trained and registered as
Native Guides, opening up local, sustainable jobs for these youth.
5. Covering classroom costs
Completing Piñán's high school this summer was a milestone accomplishment done with the help of the entire community. To make this huge accomplishment possible, CAN accepted a counterpart contribution at no interest. We will be working to pay back this generous loan over a three-year plan. To enable us to provide continued support to impactful programs in Piñán and in other Ecuadorean communities, a portion of the funds raised will be allocated to these payments.
Your Contribution Matters
Please consider helping the students and families of Piñán in their vision to make a better life in their community. By donating to our crowdfund, you’ll be directly contributing to programs that have been designed with community participation to do exactly this.
Thank You!
