The students who went to Ecuador volunteered their time and energy to help children in Ecuador. While they were there, the youth volunteers also had the opportunity of a trip to the Amazon, which Alex was looking forward to, except for the insects!
Things that go bump in the night
…or croak
The youth volunteers met children in the communities where they worked
Children in San Miguel
Children from San Miguel… and later a soccer game in La Pampa
The donkeys that Alex named Mary and Joseph
Alex and an alpaca at Adele’s. Alex loves animals and would have liked to bring this fellow home with her.
Alex and Alys receiving cleansing ritual from shaman
Soccer game with children in La Pampa
Alex wrote about the soccer game:
“As soon as we came to the community of La Pampa, we were greeted by a swarm of little Ecuadorian boys with a dirty soccer ball. It didn’t take long before we were playing soccer on the make-shift field they had!
The youth volunteer workers and I like to refer to them as a ‘swarm of bees’ because there were constantly at least five of them around your knees at one time. We were so afraid we were going to kick them, but they sure weren’t afraid to kick us! We left that soccer field with defeat AND bruises left, right and centre.”
Mount Chimborazo, a currently inactive volcano in the Andes Mountains, which is 6, 268 metres high, and the highest mountain in Ecuador
This trip was a great experience that the Alex and Alys and the other volunteers will never forget. Perhaps, like Craig, they’ve been bitten by the bug of social activism in stepping outside their world to help other children. Alex would like to go on another trip, but now is the time to save to go to university or college (what Alys is doing this year). Who knows what opportunities will be waiting for them in the future.
As I learn more about the organization and read further in the book, Free the Children, I learn what an inspiration that Craig’s older brother Marc has been for him and especially the support of their parents as the organization got started. They, too, were anxious about where this activity would lead him and about Craig travelling so far from home at such a young age. There was no turning back for Craig at that point.
Craig and Marc have since written
several books — a second edition of
Free the Children,
The World Needs Your Kid, and other books on environmental issues and social activism. They also offer activities for youth
here.
What you can do to Free the Children?
I enjoyed the blog. Many good wishes for your project and for the Christmas holidays. May they be blessed with hope and joy. Mirella
Thanks for stopping by, Mirella, and for your comment as well. Best wishes to you and your family as well.
Great blog. So many young people are doing trips like this. Too bad they weren’t around when we were younger. Gayleen
Thanks, Gayleen. No, we didn’t get those chances, but all that fundraising that Alex had to do just wouldn’t have happened.