Handling all the issues related to the Projects VP for the past three years has been a wonderful experience for me.  During that time, I have never been able to go to Ecuador to meet our scholarship holders or the people who run the different projects we support.  Although I have only been able to contact them by e-mail and sometimes by phone, even that brief contact has been a fulfilling experience.

This time working with Ecuador Mi Pais, has given me hope that things will always get better, even though they seem very tough at times.  This renewed hope definitively comes from the dedication that I can see in the kids who receive our support and are able to develop their skills at school every day.  It also comes from knowing all the dedicated people who work very hard trying to change the destiny of a number of children who hope education will provide them a way out of the circle of poverty and despair that their parents have gone through.  This includes each one of you, our supporters, who although so far away from a country that you hardly ever hear about, are there for those children who desperately need you.  Those Ecuadorians who left their country for one reason or another and still care about the future of kids they have never met and probably never will.  I wish I could have the time and unlimited space in this article to let you know about each one of the children, their stories, and the hard situation they face to go to school every day.  But most important, I wish I could tell you about their increased faith in themselves knowing someone far away cares about their future and believes they can succeed.  Their little thank you notes are specially filled with gratitude and pride over their achievements and they are always hoping and wondering if we will continue to support them.  We always tell them we are not doing this for charity, and that we see this as an investment towards a better future for our country and that makes them feel very important.

We have certainly increased the number of kids we are supporting and are actually helping more than 95 kids go to school every year and also making sure their parents understand the importance of letting them do so.  The current financial situation is forcing us to be a bit more cautious this year and unfortunately, we will not be increasing the number of scholarships for next year but we will certainly maintain the ones we have committed to so far.

I believe that our biggest challenge is yet to come; we have reached a point where we need to dream big and give shape to a larger and more ambitious project that will allow us to make significant changes to education in Ecuador.  This will require a tremendous effort since we will have to work together with other organizations having different strengths and experience; but we believe this is the right time to do it.  If you are interested in being a part of this dream and making a contribution to this effort, please, contact us.  We certainly could use some help and different points of view are always welcome since they promote a healthy discussion.

I definitely feel very lucky that I have had the opportunity to help in this organization and have been able to see it grow throughout the years.  I know life changes very rapidly and you never know if you will be doing the exact same thing one year from now.  But do I know for certain that I have grown both spiritually and emotionally as a result of this work that we have been doing.  I hope in the future more of our members will want to participate in a more active way to make sure our efforts continue in behalf of the children.  I am sure that just like me, they will never regret the time they share with this organization.

Gaby Viteri

When I first started as a volunteer for Ecuador Mi País I knew I wanted to do something meaningful with my life, with my work, and with my skills. My paid job at the time was completely boring, meaningless, monotonous, but paid the bills. I knew I needed a challenge. I knew I needed a change, but my monthly paycheck was like an intravenous needle that was barely keeping me alive drop by drop without letting me live fully. When I found Ecuador Mi País I knew I found the solution. Working for this Organization would allow me to have the excitement of taking decisions, have work challenges, find new co-workers, new friends, and help people with my work; thus changing my life and the world in the process.

The options when I first joined the Organizations were not much, but I knew that the organization needed a presence in the Internet. I had some technical skills working with databases, utility programs, and had done my thesis for my MBA in electronic commerce, so I had an idea about how websites work, but I had never done one in my life. Anyway, that was my challenge! I signed up to create the first website of the Organization and to put it in the Internet. I have to admit that I was lucky, or as the famous writer Paulo Coelho puts it: “when you do things for the first time, the universe confabulates itself to let you succeed”.

We collected one dollar per person at the first meeting of the Organization and bought the domain. Later, Roberto Andrade came up with the first design of the website, and I had a friend that had a server, so I asked him if we could borrow some space to have our first website online. To make the story short, I got a copy of an html editor and not much later I was managing and maintaining the official website of the organization that was live to the world. It was like a dream come true. I had all the challenge that I needed and I felt that I was doing something meaningful for me and for the kids from Ecuador that cannot go to school because of lack of funds. A few months later we were able to collect donations through the website and were sending money to Ecuador to fund education projects.

Then, I got so interested in the work that I was doing for Ecuador Mi País that I decided that I needed to pursue a Masters in Information Systems. That is how I immediately applied, got accepted and enrolled for a Master ’s Degree at George Washington University and a few months later I got the opportunity to start my own company based on the new knowledge and skills that I had. Obviously I took that opportunity.

At that time, the economic depression came and my entire division at my paid work was closed, so I was laid off. However, Eruditos, the company that I just created was starting to sell and I got a scholarship at the University, so losing my job was completely uneventful. In fact, at last I had the feeling that I had been able to pull that intravenous needle from my body and I was starting to live freely and fully.

Bernardo Darquea