Articles
South-South interchange: from the sea level to the highlands
In Ecuador, peasants from the coastline, who live in the islands of the gulf of Guayaquil, at the sea level, made two visits to the province of Chimborazo to get to know the technologies from EcoSur network and exchange experiencies with indigenous communities from the highlands, settled over 3,800 meters above the sea level.
The peasants from Cerrito de los Morreños and Libertador Simón Bolívar, fishermen villages, visited the facilities of the EcoSur Network in Riobamba, where they met the Dry Toilets and FerroCement Panels technology.
In Guantug, a small farmers community, 40 minutes from Guamote, Dr. Gerardo Chacón, director of the Social Inclusion and Wellfare Secretary in Chimborazo, (MIES, in spanish), showed to the partners from the coastland the projects that run since 8 years ago: a training program in preventive healt and midwifes, supported by the construction of basic medical facilities, just where they are needed. The training program in preventive healt includes recovering of the ancestral knowledge in the use of medicinal plants of the region. This program is so succesful that one of the teachers from Guantug traveled to the villages in the coast to give training in medicinal plants as part of a preventive healt program.
Gerardo Chacón (left) listens to Federico Koelle (center)
in the medical facility in Guantug, Chimborazo
Federico Koelle, from the CerroVerde foundation who coordinates the program in the gulf zone with the support of Medeor, promotes this experience interchange in order to show "the richness of the higlands in the crop lands and the coastland in the sea and its products". Through Medeor, training and knowledge exchange in ancestral medicine between the coast and the highlands is financed. MIES support with healtcare professionals who give training in first aid and nutrition.
Diego Coloma, from EcoSur Ecuador, was in the two islands in the gulf of Guayaquil to know the needs of the two communities and intervention opportunities with the technologies of EcoSur. As well as in all over the world, basic needs are the same in these islands, thats why CerroVerde Foundation and EcoSur Network will implement a small Dry Toilet project.
Diego Coloma in Cerrito de los Morreños, in the gulf of Guayaquil
promoting the Dry Toilet technology
