Customized Group Trips Performing Community Service In Local Schools

  Ecuador

• Quito: 
Quito

Dates: Open all year round

Description: Every child deserves and education! Help a struggling school give the best education possible to children who want to learn. Be part of the solution and experience the satisfaction that comes with helping children learn and smile.

Volunteers will work at a school that has a Bio Education program. The school is starting to grow and lacks economic resources. Volunteers will be helping in fixing the furniture, painting murals, interacting with the kids and preparing the soil and area for an organic vegetable garden. Volunteers will be working on a daily basis at this school. Volunteer will also have the chance to interact with the children, in this way helping to improve the quality of education and living standards in the community as well as for the Ecuadorian society itself. Bio Foundation has a school located in Tumbaco. Tumbaco is a valley 25 minutes away from the center of Quito.

The school is in the process of growing and its facilities need the work of volunteers to help create a better environment for kids to learn. There are children from ages 4 to 11 at the school. The children who attend the school are children who lack economic resources and in many instances have had learning difficulties. This model of education is inclusive and helps children with learning disabilities to find a place where they can develop their skills and feel that they are learning in a fun and creative way. The children who have been part of this program have better self-esteem, are enthusiastic, feel happy and yearn to learn in this environment. Children with learning disabilities have achieved in learning spatial concepts, numerical operations, read and write.

The main pillars of Bio Education area:
1. To ferment personal growth, not the material gains
2. Is neutral and impartial
3. Considers each person as a unique individual
4. Has a holistic view and is developed in an integral way
5. It focuses on the educational development: Bio Education believes that individuals can develop their mind in an unlimited way 6.Promotes happiness and smiles: In this way learning takes place, children enjoy and yearn learning.

Highlights:
Day 1: Your plane arrives in Quito, Ecuador's capital city. After warm welcome at the Quito airport, we will transfer to the home stays (Families).

Day 2: Breakfast. We will pick you up from your home stay and take you to a meeting point. Here we will have a brief orientation presentation regarding your program. We will transfer you to the project where we will start working (painting walls, reforestation, etc). Work will be done in groups, with one chaperone each, and our staff will be there to assist as well. At noon you will be given a lunch box. At around 4pm we will return to the home stays. You will have dinner at home

Day 3: The bus will pick you up, from meeting points and take you to the Project. Continue work in the established groups. Lunch Boxes will be provided. At around 4pm you will return to the home stays. Dinner at home.

Day 4: The bus will pick you up, from meeting points and take you to the Project site. At noon you will be provided with a lunch box. After lunch we will depart to the Middle of the world. This is a monument in the Middle of the planet, a sign that announces the latitude 0°. A yellow line that separates two hemispheres: the north and the south; then you just need to take a step to enter in one leaving the other one, in an unique experience that can only happen in the middle of the World, picturesque "city" of colonial reminiscences, located in the outskirts of Quito, capital of Ecuador. We will observe this monument very close and visit the Intiñan Museum, called "The Real Middle of the World" as in this place, you can observe various experiments that show you're in the Middle of the World! At around 6pm you will return to your home stay and have dinner at home.

Day 5: The bus will pick you up, from meeting points and take you to the Project site. Lunch Box will be provided at noon and after lunch we will depart to the Cable Car Teleferico. This is a brand new tourist attraction in Quito. The Teleferico is built over an area of 160 hectares in the skirts of the Pichincha and the summit of Cruz Loma. It has different services that include an amusement park, shopping center, food court, exclusive restaurants, handicraft stores, go car track, coffee shops, horseback riding and a nightclub. In a second phase of the construction there will be a hotel, a spa, a movie theater complex, a botanic garden and a bird watching area. It's biggest attraction it is the Teleferico itself, which gives to every visitor a spectacular view of the city and its surroundings including more than 14 peaks of the Andes that is called the Volcano Avenue. The Teleferico reaches 4,050 meters on the summit of Cruz Loma. At around 6pm you will return to your home stay and have dinner at home.

Day 6: The bus will pick you up, from meeting points and take you to the Project site. Lunch Box will be provided at noon and after lunch we will depart to Quito's Colonial Town, the Old City. Quito's greatest treasures are its temples and convents, real samples of the mixture of Spanish and Indian culture. Some examples of the things you will see are:

Basilica. It is considered one of the most important pieces of the New-gothic architecture in Ecuador. It is located in the downtown, in the streets Carchi and Venezuela, next to the Convent of the Oblate's order. It was built to recall the consecration of the Ecuadorian state to the Sacred Heart of Jesus, during the presidency of Gabriel Garcia Moreno in 1873. It has 115 meters of height and it is conformed by 24 internal chapels that represent the provinces of the country. This sanctuary was inaugurated and blessed by the Pope Juan Pablo II in its visit to Ecuador the 18 of January of 1985.

La Compañía Church. It is located between the streets Garcia Moreno and Antonio Jose de Sucre. The construction of this church began in 1605, and it took 160 years. The work was made by natives who carefully shaped the baroque style in one of the most complete examples of the art in America. The church was closed for 40 years in 1767 because of the expulsion of the Jesuits of the country. Its design was inspired in the Gesu's Church, of Rome, and their columns are a copy of the ones created by Bernini in the Vatican. In its interior, we found beautiful altarpieces, and pulpits covered with gold. Its facade is a real jewel, with symbols and figures in its entire frontal wall. You will be enchanted to discover "La Compania´s" mystery.
San Francisco Church & Convent San Francisco is the greatest architectonic jewel of all the cities of Latin America. It is located in the intersection of the Benalcazar, Bolívar, Sucre and Cuenca streets right in Quito's downtown. The construction of this church is marked with a frightening legend, if it you want to discover it, visit the following link: The Vestibule of San Francisco. Its construction began in 1536, in lands bordering the place where the native Indians used to barter their products. The work was in charge of the Franciscan Priest Jodoco Rique. The church's construction was finished in 1580; it is the harmonious result of several artistic influences as the baroque. The Franciscan Order was the first to settle in Quito. Some of the major attractions of San Francisco are: its main altar, the lateral chapels and the pulpit, they are outstanding beauties. In the main altar there is the image of the Virgin of Quito, carved by Bernardo de Legarda, main emblem of the Quito's art in la Escuela Quiteña. At around 6pm you will return to your home stay and have dinner at home.

Day 7: The bus will pick you up, from meeting points and take you to the Project site. A Lunch Box will be provided at noon and after lunch we will depart to take some Salsa Lessons!!! At around 6pm you will return to your home stay and have dinner at home.

Day 8: Breakfast at your host family. Departure to Volcano Cotopaxi (Trip will take approx. 8 hours). It's Ecuador's highest active volcano at 5897m, located in the Eastern Cordillera. It is a stratovolcano (very similar to Mt. Fuji or Mt. Sashta) with an almost perfectly symmetrical cone, rising from a highland plain of 3800m and covered by a mighty glacier starting at a height of 5000m. The side of the cone has deep valleys scoured by lahars. The summit crater is 600m x 800m in diameter and several hundred meters deep. Its geographical location is 0.677°S and 78.43°W, some 60 km southeast of Quito and 15 km northeast of Latacunga, provincial capital of Cotopaxi province. Stop over at Baños for lunch. Continue your trip to the Andes Hacienda. Arrival to Cotopaxi. A nice Andean Hacienda, located next Cotopaxi Volcano where you can rest and get warm next to the fireplace. Dinner will be ready, a delicious Andean dishes in a nice ambiance. Then you can rest in the nice and warm Machai Rooms. (Like an Andean refuge).

Day 9: A delicious breakfast will wake you up. A Brief lesson is given in the morning at Hacienda to teach you how to ride and get acquainted with the horses. Also we will divide the group in two. The first group will do horse riding from 10:00-12:00 in the meantime the other group will do the trekking. Wearing the typical "Chagra" attire. We will begin a visit to the foothills of Rumiñahui volcano, riding side by side with herds of wild horses and bulls. Our native guides will share their knowledge of medicinal plants. The ride takes about 3 hours. (Afterwards a delicious lunch of local flavors awaits us at the farmhouse. In the afternoon the second group will do horse riding from 13:00-15:00 in the meantime the other group will do the trekking. Returning to Quito, the bus will transfer the group to the host families.

Day 10: Transfer to airport.
Itineraries can be customized upon request to fit the needs of the group

This Program is open to Worldwide Participants.

Participants Travel to Ecuador in Groups

Typically Participants Work in Groups of Individual Groups

Post-Program Services Include:

• Exit Debriefing Abroad
• Alumni Network
• Job and Internship Network

LEAD Adventures Ecuador's Mission Statement: Since its creation in 2004 LEAD Adventures has been extremely successful launching programs in Ecuador and the Galapagos Islands and establishing mutually beneficial partnerships abroad. Up to date we have efficiently managed over 2,000 inbound participants individually and in-group programs. Our programs are targeted to young minded people from all over the world that want to experience the great destinations Ecuador and South America have to offer.

Year Founded: 2004