Extreme Response
Volunteer Opportunities
Quito Dump Program
Location: Quito, Ecuador
Statistics are difficult to find because no one has counted the people who live and scavenge in the garbage dumps of the world’s poorest countries. They’re the people society has forgotten. Suffice to say there are hundreds of thousands of people who spend their days sifting through the trash, looking for something to eat or to sell, to make their hard lives a bit more comfortable.
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Program
Goals
Extreme Response grew out of a small children’s club in the garbage dump in Quito, Ecuador. In June 1997, ER’s founders began working with the 300-plus people who lived and worked among the trash. These people gleaned their living by digging through the garbage that flowed out of the back of garbage trucks. They lived in small shacks made from pallets and other building materials they found in the trash. They survived on what they found to use, eat and sell.
The very first Christmas party in the Quito Dump was held in December 1997 with more than 300 people in attendance. We now hold several Christmas parties for the recycling community and with our partners in Ecuador. Today, the Dump serves as a transfer station where garbage is trucked in, dumped under a roofed area, sorted for recyclables and reloaded into trucks to be taken to a location outside the city.
Though the dump has changed drastically over the years, the people and their needs have not, and ER continues its work at the site through outreaches several times a year. Just down the road, we opened up the Quito Family Resource Center to be a safe-haven for the recycling families.
Programs and Volunteer Opportunities
The Quito Recycler’s Program is comprised of distinct programs. Our Women’s Program serves 60+ women through weekly gatherings that provide exercise, nutrition, skills training, business support and Bible studies at the Quito Family Resource Center (QFRC), which opened in June 2013. ER also operates the Dream Center After-School Program for 40+ children at the QFRC. In addition, ER provides counseling, outreach to night workers, home visits and maintains a special fund to help with urgent medical needs.
Volunteer Opportunities: Child Development, Teaching/Tutoring, Medical Relief, Home Construction, Family Development Workshops, Night Outreach, Quito Family Resource Center assistance, Christmas Celebrations, Livelihood Skills.
Contact us for more information in volunteering for the Quito Dump program.
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Short-Term Volunteers and Career Staff are vital to the success of Extreme Response and our programs. Without you, we would not be able to change as many lives as we do. We mobilize people to serve others through volunteering, career work and advocating.