Ecuador Student Blog

Mila B., Age 16

Roosevelt SEIS

Beginning in the year of 1964, foreign companies – such as Texaco/Chevron – have entered the Coca community in hopes of obtaining oil as a product for profit. As a result, the environment and those living in Coca have been negatively affected. The exploitation of Coca's natural resources has left many community members in states of despair: some are not able to see another day; others do not have the healthy land, to grow the food they require, in order to. Because of the selfish choices made by Texaco/Chevron to save a little bit of money, 18 billion gallons of toxic waste encompasses the Coca region, among other hazardous things. Almost everywhere you step, within the land of Coca, there is a promise of contaminated water, contaminated air, contaminated air and death… Read more

Ty M., Age 17

Open Meadow

The socical justice issue that is in the community of Sarayaku is that the government is giving Companies General de combustible ( CGC) a oil companies permission to drill with out asking the community first. The Sarayaku people does not want them to come and drill for oil because CGC would be taking over their land. They have 135,000 sq acres right now but if CGC comes they said that they would let them have 2 sq acres for 2,000 people but they need that land to grow food like yucca, plantains, corn and naranjajia. So they can live. They use so much stuff out of they rain forest for every day things that they need… Read more

David T., Age 17

Open Meadow

Sarayaku is a wonderful place with 135,000 square km of land. Its best known for people that loves to be creative about their living space. They only allow 50 groups per year and that’s it. Its one of the best places to go and learn about what they do. But as of right now they are having trouble with the oil companies trying to invade on them… Read more

Britteny J. Age 19

Open Meadow

The social justice issue behind intag is the Copper Mesa Mining that has been going on for 12 years. How it all started was when Rosario Piedra husband was when shot dead by the paramilitary squad because he had refused tol et them come and survey the land. Piedra community sent her to peru to visit a copper mine and when she returned back to ecuador with  the report on what she saw the community was in shock… Read more

Open Meadow

The Pangaea group has been to a lot of communities that have social justice issues since we have been on this trip but I chose a specific community to do my blog on which is Coca. I chose Coca because chevron/Texaco dumped billions of water waste (oil mixed with water) into oil pits in the ground because they had no where else to store the left over mess from the oil that couldn’t be used. By doing this, Texaco has done amounts of damage to the indigenous people’s land and water. The people depend on all their resources around them such as water, trees, soil so that they can plant more food, bathe in rivers and use the streams  for water to drink, but they had to stop using there resources for a little bit because the oil pits had toxins in it that contaminated all their natural resources. When the people in the community started to using the water again the kids and adults were coming out with mouth sores, stomach and uterine cancer, birth defects and numerous amounts of miscarriages all types of mal-functions to their bodies… Read more

Sarah M., Age 18

Open Meadow

In 2004 Sarayaku was a community of 2,000 indigenous Kichwa people, the growth since then is unknown. The people of the community can be found in the Central Ecuadorian Amazon rainforest. They do not depend in the Government of the state for help. They depend completely on the lush forest of the Amazon for growing their crops, mostly containing yucca, bananas, plantains and fruit. The land provides room for their growing families and livestock.. Using the resources of the forest for building homes, boats, furniture and clays that is used for making cups or plates, common plants for medicine, tea, and  palm leafs that is made into a backpack for the transportation of Yucca and other foods… Read more

Audrion W., Age 18

Open Meadow CRUE

This is Audrion Bird´s blog number three. You will find this blog to be very abstract and tap into your senses. This blog performs best if you listen to calming music while reading. I suggest Kelley Howells Total Relaxation mp3. Look down, take caution… Read more