Gonzalo Alarcon' 2011 Challenge

I am Gonzalo Alarcon, 57, Co-founder and President of VDO-Ecuador. I am inviting you to support me and maybe even accompany me on this Challenge.


 The main purpose of completing this challenge is to fund a ‘boat library’ for some of the children of indigenous families in the isolated villages of the Ecuadorian Amazon tributaries. They do have a village school funded by the government but they have very few resources and few books. They have little contact with other children outside the community. The only way to reach them is by boat, when the rains allow, or in an emergency, by plane. 14 months ago you may remember we took two busloads of children and families to a school in the Amazon basin. It was the first time that Ecuadorian children from the Andean highlands had met river children. They each loved the contact, played football together, ate together and swam in the river. They learnt a lot about each others lives.

The visit in our challenge week will just be the initial contact, but we will take books and magazines for the parents, and we hope to invite Diana, our own story writer, to bring her own books with us. What we would hope to do is to set up a visit for contact and book exchange twice a year. This would mean an additional stock of books, safe storage facilities and rental of a boat and boatman. Perhaps we may even be able to bring the Amazonian children to the Highlands sometime in the future.

A subsidiary purpose would be to have a small editorial workshop so we can publish our own books and editions. We do have some practice in this.

My aim of climbing to 5500 metres of Cotopaxi, an icon in itself is to raise awareness of our charitable aims, and to raise money for these projects. We look to raise $4,300.

If you like the idea of the projects and feel you can support  its completion anytime in the next three months, you can send a donation to our branch charity in England AFET (www.afetuk.uk) where a direct donation can be made via Paypal.  In the USA you can send the money to our charity VOLUNTARIOS DE OCCIDENTE, Inc. using the donate button at http://www.voluntariosdeoccidente.org/donate.html  In both cases you will receive tax benefits because they are fully registered charities. Alternatively the money can be sent direct to VDO in Ecuador via Western Union. Please ask me for details.

You could join me in completing this. It would be good to have company and I will need a photographer and other help.

The Challenge will take place in the third week of March 2011, depending on the weather, but donations can be received after this of course. You can follow this Challenge at this web page or via our web page in facebook “Voluntarios de Occidente”. Your comments and encouragement are much appreciated. All messages will be published after this article.

 

 

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