A New Fact !!!
 The Semillas Preschool is located in a very poor neighbourhood of Quito. As governmental financial support is hardly enough to get essential things like food, diapers and vaccinations – the child centre is pending on other funds as from Ecuador Volunteer to provide the children an appropriate alimentation, education and environment. But even though the children and the teachers and of this centre live in very poor conditions; they have such a positive, warm and lovely attitude, which is incredibly admirable.
The playground of the preschool consisted of few, old play tools, as money is just not available. For Christmas 2008 the Semillas Preschool received donations of $1800 USD from friends from Germany and Quito. With this money we bought a wooden play house for the children, a pool with plastic balls and last but not least individual Christmas presents for every child. As the most of the children live well below poverty level it is not hard to imagine that Christmas gifts are just not affordable for the parents. But this year every child got a present with a toy, some pens and book, and some candies and made it to a very special Christmas for them.
I would like to thank all my great friends in Germany and Quito who donated some money and made this small dream of the children come true!
I also would like to thank Ecuador Volunteer for their great support to this and many other projects in Ecuador and the teachers of the preschool, who are doing a great job every day!
Julia Haessler
 On April 30, after a long period of procedures and waiting, we, The Ecuador Volunteer Foundation, with the generous help of one of our volunteers, Peter Clausen of Danish nationality, were finally able to hand over to the Patronato Social de Macas, medical equipment valued at 22.000 USD which has been addressed to the Hospital de Mascas, to the medical attention center of the Patronato Social of this city and of the medical center of the community of Sevilla.
One year before, Peter Clausen, one of our ex volunteers, initiated the proposal to assist us in obtaining medical equipment from various organizations in Denmark, that would facilitate the equipment of health centers with low economic resources that do not receive governmental funds; this initiative gave way to the directing of this donation to the Ecuadorian Amazon Region, specifically to the Province of Morona Santiago and to its capital, Macas. The first contacts with the organizations created great interest and openness to this cooperation. Peter created a webpage with information on the projects and contacts, which proved to be a fundamental tool to this cause, his work has been really surprising and the tenacity he has showed to move the project forward has been simply admirable. It was a large period of conversations with different institutions, which put at the project’s disposal instruments of great value, not only economically, but also for service, and various second hand goods which were still in perfect condition have been collected. For the first time, help was provided to very vulnerable sectors of Ecuador. After an extended period of procedures and permits, we finally succeeded in having the donation reach its place of destination, the ancient city of Macas, where they are presently being used to serve the community and specially the Suar sector.
I wish to stress that all this would not have been possible without the help and the assistance of Peter Clausen, to whom I would like to give my warm thanks for everything we have achieved.
Semillas Preschool
The Semillas Preschool is a small day-care centre in Quito, Ecuador in the neighbourhood of Toctiuco. This child centre is located in a very poor neighbourhood, and most of the children attending the preschool live well below the poverty level. The only funding that this day-care centre receives comes from the government, and unfortunately this amount is hardly enough to pay for essentials such as toilet paper, diapers and food.
The floor in this project was in extremely bad shape. In three of the rooms there was cold, hard cement and in the fourth room there was old, withered wooden panels installed years ago by the children’s parents. Apart from its awful appearance, the floor was impossible to clean. This March the Semillas Preschool received a total of $750 USD in donations from the people of Ashland, Oregon, and we used that money to put in beautiful new tile flooring throughout the entire centre. I cannot describe the improvement that this new floor has made in the centre, the difference is truly incredible.
I would first like to thank Steve and Lita Neuberger for the money that they raised as well as for the money that they personally donated. I would also like to thank Lila Schreiber and all the students at Ashland High School who contributed to this project.
I would also like to thank Ecuador Volunteer for their collaboration and support throughout this project. This foundation provides the means for projects such as this one to be accomplished, and I cannot thank them enough for simply doing what they do everyday.
Caitlin Kirby
The Process
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