ACTIVITIES FOR ELDERLY IN THE ECUADORIAN AMAZON

Welcome to spring, and all the things going on at Yachana. Bio digester, we are now beginning to sell the bio fertilizer to farmers in the region. And thanks to the social media, also selling within others parts of the country. Our stingless bees. Up to five hives now and we have completed the construction of the little “houses” where we will locate the future 15 hives. More hives will be coming in the next few days. We are starting a demonstration coffee project where we will be planting one hectar (2.5 acres) of coffee to experiment with the production in relation to the use of our bio fertilizer. And much more. A lot of interesting things going on to share with the locals in the region plus our other visitors from throughout the world. Thanks for your support. Keep in touch. Love, Douglas

During the pandemic, the Ministry of Health would not allow us to do anything with groups in our Elderly project, but now that controls have been lifted, there is more movement and interest in programs for the elderly. We have received a few small groups and are talking to organizations coordinating larger groups. We still have a lot of activities lined up for this age segment, in part because I am in that age group! Me in my 80 years, am still going strong on the social media platforms with over 1.3 million followers. Tens of millions have watched the videos. We are coming to the end of the year when people are thinking about donations, and would like to ask that you consider Yachana in your plans. Thanks, keep in touch. Love, Douglas

India, Pakistan, Iran, Spain, Italy, the UK, the USA and other parts of the world are seeing temperatures that they have never seen before. From 40 to 52 degrees Celsius (104 to 126 Fahrenheit). This is causing a number of crisis from just straight human deaths to the dying of pollen of plants, many food plants, collapse of energy grids due to over demand, train rails buckling from the heat and roads so hot they can’t be used; plus much more. We are doing our part to save part of the Amazon rainforest. The rainforests are one of the largest equalizers of global heat. We are transmitting this message via our different platforms on Social Media. Across all of the platforms we have over 850,000 followers and over 70 million people have looked at the videos. Thank you for your support to make all of this possible. Douglas

As I have repeatedly mentioned, we have combined our project for the elderly with our program to protect the Amazon rainforest. It is so important to get this message of conservation out to the world, and we are succeeding through our emphasis on social media, principally right now, TikTok. But though we are reaching the world, we are also getting to the people who live in the region. The “crazy gringo” is well known locally and students and families are following me and what we are doing through our videos. We are doing them all in Spanish; the language of the people who are directly involved in the projection of their rainforest. To give you an example of the impact, we now have 581,000 FOLLOWERS! We have 4.1 million LIKES. And our videos have been viewed over 50 MILLION times! That is an impact! Thanks for your continued support of the work of Yachana. You can find the videos at www.tiktok.com/@yachana.com         Douglas

In our world today we all have to be flexible and innovative. Things for our elderly project were finally opening up, but now the Municipal government does not have the funds to cover their part of the program which included transportation and food. So, all we can do is hold that project in stand-by. But, that has not kept us from moving forward in other areas.

Conservation and education are two of the most important pillars of our foundation. We have been protecting 1,000 hectares (2,500 acres) of rainforest for nearly 30 years. We are now using this land in an interesting project called Footprint For Life (yachana.com/nature ) as a way to help raise funds without touching the forest to allow us to continue protecting this land and hopefully acquire additional rainforest for conservation. In education, we are offering a new program that will start early next year where students from a nearby school will be able to walk to Yachana after school for practical activities. Our philosophy is “learn by doing”, and this program will reinforce that. It will include everything from their fixing their own lunch in one of our kitchens to then be involved in agriculture, mechanics and learning English. Also, a new component of what we are doing in education is the production of a series of videos on life in the jungle and world climate issues in a simple format to understand. This is available on most of the social media platforms (yachana.com/videos). To focus on these directions, we have a new GlobalGiving project supporting the conservation, education and videos. (https://www.globalgiving.org/projects/saving-the-amazon-with-your-help/ ) So please check out this new GlobalGiving project and see how you can be involved. We have been able to modify and develop new ideas thanks to your interest. We hope you will continue to support the Yachana Foundation in our work to protect the Amazon. Remember, it is for our climate and the local people. Thanks, Douglas