The Santa Rosa de Ayora Community
Santa Rosa de Ayora is a small community of about one thousand people. The town is 60 kilometers north of Ecuador’s capital city, Quito. Our daycare center designs will be approved by engineering officials in municipality of Cayambe, the nearest city to Santa Rosa. Most adults in the community work in the flower industry around Cayambe. While the adults work, the community needs a safe place for their children to learn and play. The previous children’s center was small and understaffed, and as a result only about 30% of the children under the age four in the community were able to attend the day care. The other children were left unattended at home, while their parents work full-time to support their families. The need for a community daycare center in Santa Rosa de Ayora was brought to our attention by a Johns Hopkins student, Daniela Martinez, who founded our project in 2006. We have built a new children’s center that is nearly three times larger than the previous children’s center. Construction was finished in 2012 and we are now assessing the impact of the project. This new, larger community-owned daycare center benefits individual families as well as the community as a whole by providing a place for children to live and learn in a safe environment during the day.
