Balerio Estacio is one of the poorest neighbourhoods in Guayaquil in Ecuador. It is a slum with no proper roads or houses. Many children live in families with social problems and are confronted daily with violence and poverty. If the children and young people do not get access to education they will face a life on the street.

Around 200 children between 5 and 18 years of age visit the small school „Reino Unido“ every day. On weekends, adults who did not complete school can improve their level of education.

This school is one of the few places where the kids can feel safe. During the rain season, it often happens that the children seek shelter in the school building and stay overnight. The school also tries to provide food for the children.

Lerry Medina (Headmaster and founder of Fudeconec)

For me, relieving the pain of others is like fighting my own worries – that is why I can identify very well with social work and why I am so strongly involved in community and volunteer work. Ultimately, this is also what motivated me to found Fudeconec. We started this initiative in 1995 to help the people who are living in great need in our country. Since then we have achieved a lot. I myself am the best example of this: After graduating in Law, I studied to be a teacher so that I could work in the school. But that was still not enough for me; after my studies I took up theology and studied the Bible, so that I could share the knowledge I had gained with the people in my neighbourhood. Today I run the Reino Unido school founded by Fudeconec. Furthermore, I still work as a lawyer, so that I can help people in need with their legal problems. So I am happy to be able to do something good every day.

In the morning I go to school with my family. There I take care of both teaching and administrative tasks. My wife helps me in the secretariat and my children are themselves pupils in different classes. When I pay the teachers at the end of the month, the money is usually not enough to pay myself a salary. This is only possible because I also work as a lawyer. In the morning I am at school and in the afternoon I am there for my clients.

My biggest dream is to expand the school so that all the children from our neighborhood can go there. I hope that none of the children will have to stay on the street and that the little ones will never have to doubt that they can achieve something in life.

I love our country and the people who live there. That is why I get up every day and try to make our world a little better – as best I can.

There is a lack of many thinks and often the school has no got enough money for the most necessary things. With your help and donations, we could support the school with educational material, furniture, books, blackboards and electric lighting. But we also could finance some larger projects together:

Since 2018, we are financing a healthy breakfast for the nearly 300 pupils. This breakfast is for many the only real meal for the day. With this support we do not only contribute to the health of the children, we also improve the learning results as it is easier to study without feeling hungry.

At the beginning of 2020 we could win financial means to support the constructions of the long-awaited library. Despite of Corona, the library was opened in August and is seen as a ray of hope during the hard pandemic times. School director Lerry Mendina is very happy to see this project realized and was lending out the first books by himself. Not only the pupils are benefitting from the library, the library is also open to the local community.

Unfortunately, Corona also hit Ecuador very hard and, as everywhere, especially the poor people are suffering. Therefore, we also financed food packages which were distributed to the families around the school.

The year 2021 started with another great project. We financed the construction of a second floor on top of the existing class rooms. The second floor provides room for five additional class rooms and ensures that each grade has its own room.