Women of the Rio Napo:

Hello,

I'm excited to share some of what we've been up to on the ground in Ecuador over the past few months. THANK YOU, as always, for your support. This work would simply not be possible without you and your decision to directly power work on the ground with indigenous communities and women. 

The past few reports have been focused on our aquaculture projects with over 100 women in the Amazon. Over the past two months, the women have begun to sell these native fish to support themselves financially and to channel back into their collective projects. They've also used these native fish as a source of food security and nutrition for their families. 

Now, with a full year of training and aquaculture experience, the women are ready to expand their projects to keep growing native fish, supporting their communities by buidling food sources they can rely on, and by bringing income into the communities.

We're also starting an exciting new chapter of the Women of the Rio Napo project: we're starting to work with several new livelihood projects to diversify how the women make income and access education, health care, clean water, and more. From fresh honey from native stingless bees to vanilla, cacao, and traditional plants to make essential oils, we're so excited to be moving the project into a new, larger-scale stage where hundreds of people across the region can start building self-sustaining economic livelihoods.

One last update: we are building a Youth Empowerment Center in Sani Isla, one of our partner communities! We helped a group of young people start a youth and education focused association last year, and they've been hard at work building the Center and planning for the future of their organization. They will host young people from across the Amazon, hold events and educational opportunities, empowering youth from other communities and expanding educational and livelihood opportunities for young people and strengthening their skills and capacities to preserve their culture and protect their communities and forests. 

We've got a lot planned over the next few months, to make this Youth Empowerment Center and all these livelihood projects a reality. We hope you will consider supporting us again so we can make all this happen on the ground! Our project coordinators are from the communities themselves, and we work directly in and with the communities, year round. 

If you're excited by this work, please consider supporting us again with a donation or by sharing our page with friends and family. 

As always, I'd love to hear from you! You can reach me at Raina@RainforestPartnership.org. 

Read about an exciting victory in Ecuador this past month: Ecuadorians choose to protect Yasuni National Park by preventing future oil exploration in one of the most biodiverse places in the entire world. Read more here: https://www.rainforestpartnership.org/blog/ecuadorians-choose-life-over-fossil-fuels

Explore our other projects on the ground here https://www.rainforestpartnership.org/projects