In Ecuador, Terre des hommes (Tdh) works together with a single partner, the Foundation Niñez y Vida, and intervenes to improve mother and child health care and for the protection of children against abuse and violence within the family, by awareness raising directly in the community.

Mother and child health care – Since the beginning of 2006, Terre des hommes has been supporting a project in Santo Domingo, a city with a flow of immigration from neighbouring Colombia.The rate of poverty is very high, access to basic services very limited and there is a large percentage of maternal and infantile mortality, where 20% of the expectant mothers are between 15 and 17 years old.

The objective is to improve their state of health by making families and young single mothers aware of pregnancy monitoring. Our strategy aims at training health workers from the community itself, who are then qualified to advise on hygienic, responsible sexual health and family planning.

Protection – Terre des hommes has implemented this program not only in Santo Domingo but also in the underprivileged quarters of the capital city, Quito. There, a serious problem prevails of inter-family violence and child abuse caused by harmful physical, mental or social effects. Our strategy is through a network of child care centers, identifying cases and intervening in an organized way with the family or the community. We concentrate on the causes leading to abuse and on an awareness of good treatment.


Tdh yesterday...
Since 1988, Terre des hommes has been setting up reception structures for children left to their own devices at a public refuse dump in Quito. Our projects were soon successfully run through a local NGO intermediary, the Niñez y Vida Foundation, the only national organization specializing in the field of child protection. In 1991, a project of self-run day nurseries was formed, with four units in the underprivileged quarters of Quito.

From 2001 to 2005, a project of mother/child health care was run in Guamote, in the Andes. In 2002, we started up a project to fight against child abuse and inter-family violence in the disadvantaged quarters of the capital, which is still running today. Finally, at the beginning of 2006, a new project was set up in Santo Domingo for mother/child health care, child protection and community development.


...and tomorrow
Although numerous indicators show improvement, the daily life of millions of Ecuadorians is still hard. Progress, in this transitional year 2006, depends on the result of the presidential elections, the major issue being political stability between the Left, which leans towards greater national independence, and the Right, which defends its alliance with US-American neo-liberal politics. For Tdh, the greatest challenge remains the setting up of basic infrastructures (health care, education, etc.) which the majority of Ecuadorians need so badly.


Real life
Maria, just 7 years old, lives with her 6 brothers and sisters in a hut in the heart of one of the poorest quarters of Santo Domingo. Her father, a shoe-shine man, works hard to bring little more than 100 francs home to his family. With such an income, not one of the children has been to school, but were forced to help earn money for the family. When she was 3, Maria ate a poisonous plant which caused serious brain damage; although the doctors managed to save her life, she became irreversibly deaf and dumb.

Without means, her parents were unable to send her to a specialized institution, and neighbors say that the family beat her and keep her shut up, for fear of social shame reflecting on them all. One day, Maria shared with us her dream of being able to go to school; efforts were made to make the family aware of this, and our social workers searched for funds and for an institution where Maria could be looked after.

Going on with our inquiries into the family, we now discovered that Mercedes, one of the elder sisters – 30 years old and unmarried – had already borne four children. Only one of them was still with her, Gustavo, three years old and suffering from malnutrition. It turned out that Mercedes had sold two of her daughters, and given one boy away to her grandparents . . . Mentally disturbed, she ran away, abandoning Gustavo with her parents. We managed to trace her and convince her to go back home, helping her to find work which she could do whilst looking after her child and giving him the love he deserves!