The Project
Teach English in Ecuador

Please note: our education projects in Ecuador are unique to Global Vision International. All funding of these projects comes directly from Global Vision International and volunteer contributions, which are included in the programme fee. We receive no other outside source of income, apart from that raised through GVI and volunteer contributions. Suffice to say, without this funding from GVI and the volunteer contributions, the projects simply would not exist.

Working with the Andean Indigenous Communities

The indigenous people in Ecuador make up 40% of the population, yet many live off just $1 a day or less. Global Vision International is currently working to encourage and improve levels of education in several of the communities around Otavalo, two hours north of the capital, Quito, in the Imbabura Province. All of the communities are between 3000m and 3600m in altitude – a half hour’s drive by minivan up into the mountains from Otavalo. Each community has a population of between 150-200, whose dwellings are scattered around the mountainside. Their first language is Kichwa (or Quichua) and most speak Spanish as a second language.

One of the most immediate problems facing the indigenous population in these areas is the lack of money for education to buy even the basic school supplies. Also the distances each child has to travel (by foot) to reach the school, which is often over an hour a day, sometimes two, to and from school impacts on the children’s education. Many children have experienced little formal education, just one teacher coming up from Otavalo each day to teach all the children at once, indifferent to what age or grade they may be, in the same classroom. This lack of educational attention, plus the obvious financial constraints, means that some children don’t attend. The same can be said of the adults, some of whom may have only reached first or second grade; the majority not even that. Therefore, illiteracy rates are high in the region. Also, the ability to speak and understand English has become compulsory for those children wanting to advance past 6th Grade - an impossibility for most.

As with our similar indigenous projects in Latin America, GVI’s aims are first and foremost in education, with particular focus on literacy and educational reinforcement for the children of each community. Global Vision International, with the full support of the indigenous leaders of the communities, aims to tackle these issues. With our volunteers actually doing the teaching alongside the local teacher and on their own, we can group the children by age and grade, thus paying closer attention to the children.

With regards to the teaching, we work very closely with the leaders of the communities, maintaining regular contact with them to discuss any issues. Before initiating each project, the leaders put together an idea of areas of education to be addressed, which include basic literacy and numeracy and pays particular attention to maths and English.