The question I’m asking myself today, after five days of mission, after meeting so many young people, after hearing so many life stories, is this: how can we convey all this to others? It’s a fundamental question for me, given that my job is precisely to make people, foundations, and companies understand the importance of supporting projects like this.
We can talk about how the young people of Esmeraldas province are working to conserve natural resources and preserve the environment; how some have started small businesses to help their families and the entire community grow; but it’s not easy to convey how much all this is truly saving their lives .
It’s not just about cleaning beaches or growing cocoa, but about finding a group where different ideas are proposed, where new values are transmitted, a group where everyone can finally feel good.
These boys don’t have many options. Their activities range from drug dealing to contests to “get” the youngest girl (with or without her consent), causing early pregnancies (and we’re talking about girls as young as 11 or 12), to even starting fights simply to “get something done.”
For these kids, joining an Ecological Club means discovering an opportunity to act differently, sharing values that no one had ever told them about before.
This can be summed up by the statement of a girl who, during a group sharing session where everyone was asked to express their motivation for joining the Club, among many comments from her classmates—such as “because I love nature” or “because it’s important to conserve the environment” —she instead replied: “Because it’s NICE to be with you.”
The awareness that good things exist and that working together can bring about positive change is already the change.
Going from a drug trafficking gang to an Ecological Club is the practical outcome of this change. What could be more significant?
What struck me most was this: how something as simple as an Ecological Club, in some parts of the world, can make the difference between good and evil, between the right path and the wrong one, between life and death.
(Rosanna, head of institutional fundraising at AMU)