Manna Project International
Ecuador Feasibility Trip Report
January 12-21, 2007
Mark Hand, Austen Heim and Lori Scharffenberg


Background

Located in the northwest corner of South America, Ecuador is one of the region’s richest and poorest countries: overflowing with natural resources, but struggling with a poverty rate of forty percent.  Its capital, Quito, lies in a valley in the Andes Mountains, a range running the length of South America.  Those mountains divide Ecuador into three distinct areas, with the Pacific coastal plains flanking the highlands on one side and the Amazon jungle spreading out to the east towards Brazil. 

The capital city itself is a long, sprawling mix of urban and rural, rich and poor.  At its heart is Old Quito, a Spanish-styled town center overlooked by a statue of the Virgin Mary, who stands atop a hill bordering the historic district.  In the last half-century, Quito has expanded far beyond its original footprint, spreading farther and farther to the north and the south.  From end to end – and in these ends live the poorest of Quito’s poor – Quito measures over fifteen miles. 

Quito rests between the two ridges of the Andes Mountains, a geographic feature that has limited its east-west expansion.  As the city has grown, however (now numbering around 1.8 million), urbanization has spilled out into two valleys east of Quito.  The first, Tumbaco, is a miniature representation of the economic disparity in the country.  Next to huge mansions of Quito’s professionals are crowded tin-roof dwellings, and only a little farther out are rural areas in which buses only began to travel in late 2006. 

To the south of the valley of Tumbaco is the valley of Los Chillos, a lesser developed and more rural area.  Like Tumbaco, the weather in Los Chillos is about fifteen degrees warmer than the city; like Tumbaco, it also looks toward Quito as the driver of its economy and the great magnet which draws its children.  Unlike Tumbaco, Los Chillos has experienced a much more modest migration of Quito professionals, and continues to be a primarily agrarian and traditional society. 

Why Ecuador, why Quito? 

The process of searching for a location for a new Manna Project International site began in the spring of 2006, when Luke Putnam and the MPI Board asked former volunteer Mark Hand to assemble a team to investigate the possibility of expansion.  The choice of Ecuador was a natural one: of the Spanish-speaking, stable, South American countries in near enough proximity to the US, Ecuador and Quito specifically stands out as an ideal location for a Manna site. Quito is a large city with ample resources (including access to healthcare and emergency services for volunteers) but, as with any Latin American capital, ample need as well.

The Team

As of January 2007, six people had committed to being a part of the Ecuador team.  They include Mark Hand, Luke Lockwood, John Newman, Abbie Foust, Craig Smith and Austen Heim (in order of their commitments).  Four of these (Mark, Luke, Abbie and Austen) were joined by MPI Nicaragua Director and Board member Lori Scharffenberg for the January feasibility trip. 

The Trip

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Jan. 21st:

The Potential Sites

The Ecuador team left Quito with four potential site areas, with varying degrees of likelihood and detail.  In order of feasibility, they are 1) Santa Isabel, in the valley of Los Chillos; 2) Cumbaya, in the valley of Tumbaco; 3) San Roque, in the centrally-located Old Quito, and 4) Southern Quito, neighborhood unspecified. 

Santa Isabel and UBECI

Santa Isabel, a three-hundred family located in the valley of los Chillos about forty-five minutes from the heart of Quito, is a semi-rural setting not unlike Cedro Galan and Chilquilistagua in Nicaragua.  The area is poor but growing, accessible by public transportation, lacking in resources but well-organized as a community.  Operating in  Santa Isabel is UBECI, a small five-person nonprofit run by Byron and Monica Salvatierra, an Ecuadorian couple.  Monica's is a life-long social worker from Santa Isabel, and the organization is committed to the development of the community.  Byron used to work as the international volunteer coordinator for another nonprofit in Quito.  Together, they have rented a space in Santa Isabel where they run afterschool programs, English classes, and a new aerobics classes.  They are long on organizational capacity, passion and  ideas - hoping to begin something similar in Byron's coastal hometown - but short on manpower.  They have expressed an interest in partnering with us and with the idea of allowing Manna Project to work as an independent partner organization in the area.  Tierra Nueva also operates a center for disabled children in Amaguana, one of the nearby towns.  If there was a concern about Santa Isabel, which the group worked hard to create, it was that having another site so similar to the one in Managua might be limiting to MPI as an organization; we had hoped to locate an urban location in Ecuador as a way of providing more options to potential volunteers. 


Cumbaya, Tumbaco

Tumbaco would be an attractive setting for a Manna Project site: located outside the city (and therefore somewhat away from its worst problems), the nature of the economic disparity in the valley of Tumbaco means that it has areas of great need without having to be too far from the sort of resources, infrastructure and comforts from which a Manna site might need.  Given our contacts, we would have two options: working in the rural eastern half of the valley or working in the urban areas closer to Quito.  The former, when contrasted with Santa Isabel, makes little sense: we have no clearly interested partner organization and no coherent community in which to work.  The latter option, although yet undeveloped, would allow us to have an urban siteOur primary concern about the urban Tumbaco site is that we ran out of time before we could spend any decent amount of time seeing the communities we might serve.  Also, Tumbaco’s popularity might mean that finding a large house cheaply might prove difficult. 

San Roque and Casa Victoria

Setting up in the historical district and working with our hosts Casa Victoria held a lot of appeal for the team.  The historical district is improving rapidly, and Casa Victoria is a young and energetic organization with a lot of ideas, a lot of need for help, and a lot of space we could use.  Also, Tierra Nueva operates a street kid outreach in the area.  Lastly, the possibility of having an urban site is appealing.  The biggest drawback of San Roque, however, is safety.  While parts of the historic district are getting a facelift, violence and drug use are significant problems and there would be areas within walking distance where our volunteers could not enter, even during daylight.  Another significant concern would be the amount of impact we could have on San Roque: if the area’s biggest issues include gang activity and serious drug use, asked a number of our friends and contacts, would tackling those issues be Manna’s competitive advantage?  Also, it might also prove that being in such proximity to so many distractions (whether they be positive or negative) would decrease the amount of focus volunteers place on their projects.  Lastly, there was question over how the relationship between the secular Manna Project and the religious Casa Victoria might work. 

Southern Quito
 
Comprising nearly a third of the city, Southern Quito is a vast and varied part of Quito where the majority of poor Quiteños live.  A number of the organizations we met – UBECI, Tierra Nueva, Casa de los Amigos, CENIT – operate at least in part in some of Southern Quito’s neighborhoods.  That network of organizations, the great amount of need in the area and the attractiveness of having an urban site were Southern Quito’s biggest draws.  As in San Roque, however, security would be an ever-present issue, and the places of greatest need in the area would be the places in which MPI would be least able to make an impact.  We also were unable, in the course of a week, to determine in what areas a Manna house could possible be located.

The Timeline

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October-December 2007:

January 2008: