Ecuador’s award-winning ecotourism company, Tropic, is creating libraries for children in two diverse and remote communities that visitors may engage with while exploring Ecuador.
Two libraries will be established in Ecuador’s Amazon jungle for children of the Huaorani, an indigenous people that until 1956 had no contact with the outside world. A third library will serve the Floreana Island community in the Galapagos.
Tropic helped to establish with the Huaorani community the Huaorani Ecolodge in Yasuni National Park, a UNESCO Biosphere Reserve. Here an ancient and endangered people involve their community in showcasing for visitors their ancient traditions. Some 50+ children will have access to the two libraries.
Tropic’s interests in the Galapagos include a community-driven effort to encourage sustainable tourism here through, in part, Floreana Lava Lodge. Tropic will provide bookcases and other library-related furniture to create the Akinta Children Library. It is the mission of Tropic, an award winning ecotourism company founded in Quito in 1994, to demonstrate that environmentally sustainable and culturally sensitive tourism can be a viable business model for rural and isolated communities such as those found in the Amazon and Galapagos.
To help facilitate the creation of an inventory of books, Tropic is teaming up with the nonprofit Pack for a Purpose, an organization that suggests to travelers what kinds of supplies will be meaningful to bring to villages and communities they plan to visit.
“We offer all visitors coming to the local communities of Floreana, Quehueri’ono and Nenkepare the opportunity to interact with local children and help build these small libraries in each community with books in English and Spanish,” said Jascivan Carvalho, Founder and President of Tropic. “We have needs in the categories of Arts and Recreation, Children's Storybooks, Early, Childhood Development, Young Readers and Teenage Fiction.”