You will be stationed in the small rural community of Camarones, which is 3 km down the road from the Jama-Coaque Ecological Reserve, and you will be living and working in U.S. Peace Corp-type conditions (but only for 2 months, as opposed to 2 years). You will literally be working in the shadow of the most threatened tropical forest in the world the last Pacific Equatorial Forests of coastal Ecuador, which loom in the background along the coastal mountains.
Your Task: The quality of education in this community is currently very low. Most people only get as far as primary school education, and even when school is in session, teacher routinely dont show up, and the curriculum is very poorly suited to the very special ecological conditions in which the community lives in namely, they live on the edge of the most threatened tropical forest in the world. The adults in the community earn most of the money through forest-clearing activities, for lack of alternatives, and the effects of deforestation are not well understood by the community. Our hope is to significantly improve not only access to education in the community, but also the quality of the education, with emphasis on the issues that are most relevant to its particular conditions namely, forest and water ecology and agriculture. English takes on an especially important role in the development of this community for the many new eco-tourism opportunities that are beginning to present themselves. Most importantly, we are trying to foster a culture of conservation in this community and throughout the region, for which the wonders and power and beauty and importance of ecology needs to become household knowledge. You will be on the frontlines of this effort, which attempts nothing less than a regional consciousness shift and a generational change in natural resource management. Good Spanish speaking skills are not required but are a HUGE plus! To learn more, please visit our website, where you can download a complete program description, at www.3malliance.org (Homepage) or http://3malliance.org/index.php?id=320 (Internship page) We are also accepting applications for the winter session of our Tropical Conservation, Permaculture, and Research Internship. We hope to hear from you soon! Sincerely, Isabel Dávila Third Millennium Alliance Jama, Ecuador www.3malliance.org
