The pandemic situation in the Province of Esmeraldas , one of the poorest in Ecuador , remains critical: Covid19 continues to spread, the confirmed cases are much fewer than the real ones because many people are not swabbed and there are no doctors in the villages. It is still not easy to enforce the safety rules related to the use of masks and disinfectants, which are still very expensive. Many have lost their jobs: fishing and tourism-related businesses, such as hotels and restaurants, have closed down.
“When we risked closing the bakery that we had built and managed with great effort to recover from the 2016 earthquake, everything seemed to collapse. Because of the pandemic, in addition to risking contagion, we feared losing our jobs, no longer being able to produce and sell bread” These are the words of Josefa, from Sàlima : “Then with the Esperanza project we saw a possibility again.” One of the women who take care of the community chicken coop built in Macàra also talks about the phase of great uncertainty they are going through: ” I lost the job I used to do every now and then to clean the houses along the beach. Today they don’t want us to go for fear of contagion and so I’m left with only the job at the chicken coop to provide for my family”.
The Esperanza Ecuador project buys bread produced by the community bakery and chicken raised in community-run chicken coops, both born from the post-earthquake Sunrise project, to distribute to families who are unable to purchase basic necessities. Many of the people reached by the Esperanza project have no other means of support; that bread and those chickens are the only food they can put on their table. Despite these conditions, everyone wants to try to contribute, donating time or the little they can share , to finish the construction of community spaces. So there are those who offer free labor, those who host workers and bricklayers for a while, or those who prepare food for those working on construction. The great crisis brought by the Coronavirus has aggravated the slow recovery of the communities of Salima, 10 de Agosto and Macara after the violent earthquake of 2016. Today, with the Esperanza project we want to accompany these communities to resist the emergency and then resume, as soon as possible, their path of development.
