childcare IN QUITO

The daycare center was founded in 2000 in a market called “Mercado Mayorista San Roque” for street children whose parents are working at the market. The children are now able to play and eat instead of clinging to their mother’s skirts. The daycare center is bilingual: Quichua (the native Indian language) and Castellano (Spanish). There are about 35 children between 2 and 5 years old. The German lady Heidi Shäfer, who owns several daycare centers through the “Casa Del Sol” foundation, sponsors the center. The Indian Juan Antonio manages the center.

What can you do as a volunteer at San Roque?
- Play with the children
- Help with feeding the children, clean their hands, etc
- Clean the building
- Think of nice activities, like singing, making handicrafts, etc
- Be the sunshine in the life of children
- Give the children personal attention, for example many hugs!

Basic information:
Minimum:                    1 month
Spanish:                     Reasonable - good
Working hours:           From 9 till 3.30 pm (you can join for lunch)
Traveling time:            About 20 minutes

The Dutch student Myra de Bruin has started a daycare center in the South of Quito, while she was here during an exchange program in 2000. In the daycare center are about 50 children varying in age from 1 till 6. The project is directed by two very enthusiastic ladies and financed with money raised by sponsoring in Holland. Before you will start to work at this project you can contact Myra de Bruijn by e-mail and she will be able to tell a lot about the project. Myra would also like to receive a short report from your time at the project. From the summer 2002, the foundation has also started a self-sufficient vegetable project in Ibarra (2 hours north from Quito). In this project they grow vegetables where the children of the project can eat from and the vegetables are being sold to the parents. Volunteers can also look around at the vegetable project or help there for a day.

What can you do as a volunteer at Myra de Bruijn?
- Play with the children
- Think of nice activities or useful projects
- Help with serving food
- Help with cleaning, doing the dishes
- Help with the other daily activities at the project
- Paint the outside wall
- Help cleaning and organizing the classroom
- Prepare your work for the next day

Basic information:
Minimum:                    1 month
Spanish:                     Reasonable - good
Working hours:           From 8.30 till 16.00
Traveling time:            45 minutes

This daycare center is run by three Dutch girls named Evelien Kremer, Marleen Hendrik and Mariska Versteegh. These girls have done some volunteer work themselves, in 2002 here in Quito, after which they decided to start their own daycare center for the poor children in the south of Quito. After a lot of preparations in the Netherlands and the establishment of their foundation (niños de Waita Ticca) this project started in March 2004. There are children between the ages of 0 to 5 years old at the daycare center and during the day there is a possibility for older children to ask for help with their homework. Workshops are given to parents to let them know about the values within a family.

What can you do as a volunteer at Villa Ticca?
- Play with the children
- Help with the food
- Prepare the food
- Help the doctor at the day care centre
- Organize and do group activities
- Help with the daily activities at the project

Basic information:
Minimum:                    1 month
Spanish:                     Reasonable - good
Working hours:           Monday till Friday from 8 am to 5 pm.
Traveling time:            30 minutes

The Comunidad Cristiana del Ecuador is an organization which has been working with poor families for more than 20 years. The organization is mainly run by volunteers but does receive a little bit of money from the government for the meals of the children. The project is located in the north of Quito in the area of Mañosca.

What can you do as a volunteer at Comunidad Cristiana del Ecuador?
The daycare centre as well as primary school are open from 08.00-16.00. Each group has his own program where the volunteers can help.

Mostly they need help with:
- Music
- English
- Computer lessons
- Entertainment
- Other activities like painting, drawing, art, etc.

The organization also has a kitchen where they prepare breakfast and lunch. Here they also need help at all times. Besides this the medical department of the project can also use volunteers. People who would like to help out here need a medical background and there is a minimum stay of 2 months.

Basic information:
Minimum:                   1 month
Spanish:                     Reasonable - good
Working hours:          From 8.00 till 16.00
Traveling time:          30 minutes

Niños de Ecuador or Children from Ecuador is a foundation that was established a couple of years ago by a few Dutch people under the supervision of Melanie Verstraeten. After a few years of working as a volunteer with poor children, she decided to start her own foundation in the North of Quito. They choose to work in the North of Quito because most of the foundations in Quito are working in the South. The objective of the foundation is to let the children be children, to teach them while they are playing, to help them improve their situation.

The children’s playhouse works with poor children from 0 until 18 years old.  The basic activities, like sport, games, learning how to read and write are running really well, but in the future the foundation wants to be a safe and warm place where the street children can learn to read and write, learn English and have the possibility to take a shower. They would also like to make healthy meals for the children.

What can you do as a volunteer at the children playhouse?
- Organise activities and play with the children
- Carry out activities like singing and teaching
- Recruit children
- Teaching English
- Help with homework
- MOST IMPORTANT: give lots of attention and LOVE to the children

Basic information:
Minimum:                   1 month
Spanish:                     Reasonable - good
Working hours:          Monday till Friday from 10 to 12am and 2 pm to 5 pm.
Traveling time:          30 minutes

This foundation is looking out for the care of children between four and eleven years old. The parents of these children are in prison so there are no other persons who can look out for them. The foundation gives these children food, drinks and shelter. They also still go to school. There are more or less 20 children in total. Foundation Ganas is a very young organisation that is working hard on their development to improve their help for all these children.

What can you do as a volunteer in this project?
- Helping with their homework
- Playing with the children in from this project
- Developing didactic games
- Educational activities
- Helping in the kitchen

Besides working with the children in the morning it could be possible to work with their parents during the afternoons. They are located within the women’s prison in Quito. The foundation regularly looks out for them and visits them to talk about their situations. They try to motivate the parents to improve their lives after prison and to look for decent jobs so that they can take care of their own children. Because all the children go to school in the afternoon this can be the right opportunity to visit their parents. You can listen to their stories and tell them about their children. Volunteers will be guided by the people from the foundation.

Basic information:
Minimum:                    4 weeks
Spanish:                     Reasonable
Working hours:          Monday till Friday from 8.30 am till 12.00 pm
Traveling time:           45 minutes