During July and August we have been developing a pilot project to teach Kichwa in the sierra, with the help of Linda and Matt, two interns from Sweden and Australia respectively. Their idea is to use computers and the internet to create online classes that can be downloaded by any school with internet, or distributed on CD to those that do not. The most exciting part is that with a little technology the kids can make their own recordings about their own communities and cultures, and upload these for sharing with other schools.

Many schools in the sierra are nominally bilingual, but most lack the resources to be effective in teaching Kichwa, and some even lack the teachers. Through this project we hope to offer a way around this problem, providing high-quality, ready-made Kichwa classes. At the same time, through the teaching of the language, the culture and history of the Kichwa speakers will be preserved and promoted.

At the moment we are creating the first 15 to 20 classes to begin piloting in September, with the aid of Vinicio Quinchiguango, a founder of Yanapuma who is also a Kichwa speaker and teacher, and several teachers from the area around the community of La Chimba. We hope to generate sufficient interest with these to be able to move ahead with a full scale project in the coming year. The seed funding for this project was provided by Sotogrande International College in Spain.