Humanitarian Aid to Street Vendors in Otavalo

Humanitarian Food Aid to Street Vendors in Otavalo, Ecuador

 During the COVID-19 Health Crisis

AYNI ECUADOR FOUNDATION

Ministerial Resolution MIES-CZ-1-DDI-2019-0015-R

www.ayni.org.ec 

Report at March 2021

Since the last report, we have unfortunately had to scale back our activities for this project. We were able to continue the full project for a few weeks, but due to depletion of funds we were compelled to put several aspects of the project on hold and explore alternative means of providing aid to our project beneficiaries. Luckily, although not nearly to the extent of late 2020, we have been able to provide some relief to our vulnerable participants:

• Some local food stores in Otavalo have generously donated some Ecuadorian staples, namely flour, rice, cooking oil and sugar, all of which we have passed on to the program participants.

• In collaboration with the local chapter of the CARE Foundation, we have been able to provide a workshop regarding legal status, rights, paperwork, and procedures for normalizing immigration status for 40 Colombian refugees, some registered in our humanitarian aid program as well as others based in Otavalo.

• In collaboration with the UN’s ACNUR program, we have been able to provide a similar workshop for 20 Venezuelan refugees, several of whom are registered in our humanitarian aid program. In addition, we have been able to provide some additional nutritional assistance (donated by ACNUR) to all of the Colombian migrants registered in our program as well as several others based in Otavalo, 30 in total.

The pandemic conditions remain largely the same in Ecuador, unfortunately with a current post-carnival outbreak. As of yet, only a very modest amount of vaccine has arrived, most schools are still remote, and the desperate conditions for our vendors have endured. Despite having had to pause most of the program, we sincerely believe that our efforts have been beneficial to those we have managed to continue to serve. We are still working on securing funding and hope to be able to restart some or all of the project activities in the near future.

• GG_report_vendor_aid_March_2021.pdf (PDF)