Guamote is the fifth poorest canton in Ecuador (220+ cantons), characterized by a predominantly rural population (86%), high levels of illiteracy, high levels of relative deprivation (70% compared with a provincial level of 53% and national level of 43% in 1999), poor access to clean drinking water and sanitation, and high levels of malnutrition and infant mortality. For children under five years, there are still 30 deaths per 1000 births nationally (though this is a great improvement on the 1995-2000 figures which were 41 per 1000 live births). Life expectancy is increasing (up from 48.6 years fifty years ago to 71.3 for men and from 51.2 to 77.2 for women) and infant mortality is dropping.
Education is the most problematic area. Due to the fact that Ecuador spends only 1.1% of GNP on education, low even by Latin American standards (the average is between 4 and 7%), the quality of education is sub standard. Teachers are poorly trained and lack of community participation (amongst others) is a further significant factor. Nationally, net enrolment in basic primary education is around 95% (UNESCO), but this drops significantly as children get older, with just over half going on to secondary education (the national average).
The figure in Guamote is much lower than this as children face a multitude of cultural, geographical and financial barriers. Between 12 and 17 years old, a further 16% of students drop out of education in order to help their parents or to find other forms of work. In Guamote, only about 40% of children go into secondary education and many don’t complete their primary education. In 1990 illiteracy rate was still 37.55% amongst the population older than 10 years and 44.2% amongst the population older than 15 years. Bilingual education (Spanish and Kichwa) is prevalent throughout this area of Ecuador, but standards are variable and in most cases deficient. Schools here operate on such limited budgets that families must cover the cost of books, teaching materials, utilities and in some cases tables and chairs. These fees are an obvious barrier to poor families sending their children to school.
Basically, there comes a point when the parents need their children, particularly the girls, to work full-time in the fields or to help look after the smaller children – subsistence agriculture still dominates the economy of the indigenous communities. Illiteracy and lack of education and therefore lack of access to resources and information only compound other social problems as well. Plan Australia has reported that both poverty and peer pressure combine to lead young Ecuadorian adolescents into dangerous behaviour. Child marriages constitute 26% of marriages and Aids and HIV have increased seven fold since 1990. Plan has found that the optimal way to engage with such destructive social practices is through education that involves both children and their parents. (Global Child, Winter 2008) Illiteracy and inability to access can. That is why we need your help.
The best way to keep the good news coming is to educate the children, the girls as well as the boys. Inti Sisa is committed to this goal and the Patricia Monaghan Trust is delighted to be in partnership with Inti Sisa and its volunteers.
"If you really want to change a culture, to empower women, improve basic hygiene and health care, and fight high rates of infant mortality, the answer is to educate girls."
- Greg Mortenson in Three Cups of Tea: One man's mission to promote peace one school at a time, Greg Mortenson and David Oliver Relin (Viking, 2006)