ponre nino„Help us to create smiles!“

What is the „Fundación Amiga“?

„Fundación Amiga“ is a non-profit organization, created through the help of the Catholic Church whose aims are to help the socially underpriveledged. This is achieved through the teaching of handicrafts and the creation of jobs, with statutes approved by means of the Ministry of Education and Culture, and published in the Official Registration N° 971 of July 3 1992.

Ever since the creation of the foundation, „Fundación Amiga“ has continued to work on the organization and structure of the work. This way we were able to start a construction project, which is equipped and operated by an integral center of the production of handicrafts of women (Training in Handicrafts of Women) as well as that of men (Training of Handicrafts of Men). The project consists of several workshops which provide the adolescents and excluded women with the opportunity to learn a profession and thus obtain pay checks that help to integrate them into society. There is also a daycare center for the children of the working mothers. Furthermore, the project contains of a Sport School focused on soccer. Here, problem children and adolescents receive the opportunity to obtain a basic education with focus on sports.

The work serves the youth of Esmeraldas, where social problems such as unemployment, bad education systems, proliferation of gangs, drugs, prostitution, alcoholism amongst other difficulties are common. This way they are given the chance to ordain their own future.

Our History

„Fundación Amiga“ was created in the province Esmeraldas, Ecuador on the 3rd of July 1992, as a non-profit organization through the help of Ecuadorian laws and with the blessing of the catholic church. Father Silvino Mines, native Ecuadorean, initially worried about the constant increase of the juvenile gangs in the poor neighborhoods of Esmeraldas. Not seeing any better opportunity, he decided to start his own contribution to the youth. From this moment on, started his search for friends that shared his preoccupation. The organization started with a training of handicrafts for men and women, focusing on carpentry, mecanical metal processing and manifacturing of pasta. In 2000 the Soccer School was added for children of 8 years or older.

Our Mission

The idea of our work is to live life in a good way, that's why we are trying to dignify and improve the living standards of the socially underpriveledged of Esmeraldas through training them in various crafts.

Our vision for the year 2010

To be recognized within the province as a successful non-profit organization for:

  • giving the appropriate attention to the children in our nursery;
  • providing jobs for a great amount of people;
  • satisfying our clients mainly through the manafucturing of clothes, metal or wooden products and the manifacturing of food, especially pasta;
  • attending the people of the community with preventive medicine through the Health Center;
  • having a Physical Education Unit whose aim it is to forge sportsmen with a basic education and a winner mentality