With the help of
donations and volunteers, the Yanapuma Foundation, a fledging Quito-based
organization, is taking an innovative, comprehensive approach to community
development.  The Foundation was brought
into being by Andy Kirby, a native of Scotland, whose experience volunteering
in other community development organizations in Ecuador convinced him that a
new approach was needed. 

The Yanapuma
Foundation bases its work on a need to help indigenous communities thrive and
preserve their cultures amidst the pressures of globalization.  They are currently accepting volunteers and
donations to help with projects in the communities of Bua de los Tsachilla,
Wachimak, and La Chimba; as well as others involving street kids in Quito.  Among the unique aspects of Yanapuma is its
Spanish school, which it uses to train its volunteers as well as cover its
administrative costs.  "The idea is that
one hundred percent of donations go to fund community projects," says Kirby. 

Most
importantly, though, Yanapuma attempts to take an integrated approach to
sustainable development.  This involves
active participation from the community and the promotion of development across
a diverse range of areas.  “That means that
if we discover that physical abuse is a problem in families of a community we
are working in,” says Kirby, “we have to address that issue, even if our
project focus is on sustainable agriculture, because our goal is to promote a
sustainable, dignified lifestyle. 
Basically, we try to work with the social fabric of the community.”

According to
Kirby, one of the areas in which Yanapuma Foundation has made significant progress
towards carrying out its mission is with the Tsachilla culture in Bua.  There, the effort to promote tourism lead to
a project to build an ecological toilet in the community center. The project
expanded to include three ecological toilets in different parts of the
community.  It involved a health survey
and provided a lot of opportunity for education, which in turn promoted community
interest in hygiene and new projects, including the renovation of the medical
center. Operating in its role as coordinator, Yanapuma Foundation helped
facilitate better communication between the Tsachilla and their municipal
government and acquired help from Engineers without Boarders to design a
sanitation system for the school.

In Bua,
volunteers were utilized in diverse ways. 
Short term volunteers participated in the construction of the ecological
toilets.  An engineer designed a more
sanitary way to handle waste from the school. 
A student doing research on
the relationship between the Tsachilla and the dominate mestizo culture
contributed to understanding crucial to improved cooperation and communication
between the two groups.  An intern working in Quito was able to use
the Yanapuma’s experience to develop an integrated model for development; and
another couple who wanted to experience an indigenous culture participated in a cultural exchange, a program in which
volunteers act as proto-tourists to help indigenous communities develop their
tourism industry.        

“Here you saw
how a tourism project expanded into education and sanitation and environmental
conservation,” says Kirby. “As an integrated organization, we try to think in
an integrated fashion.”  For more
information about volunteering or donating to The Yanapuma Foundation, go to http://www.yanapuma.org/.