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The Becas Alonso de Illescas Scholarship Program

The Becas Alonso de Illescas is a scholarship program for Afro-Ecuadorian high school students living in forest and mangrove villages in communal territory in Ecuador. The project is to help some of the children currently excluded from the Ecuadorian school system.

In many of the communally held territories in northern Esmeraldas province, poorer families are unable to afford school fees and the cost of school uniforms. Promising children miss out on completing their education, often the only lifeline they have out of their poverty. Working with the high school principal of a small village in communal territory, the pilot program funded a promising student through her first year of high school. The scholarship, $100 for the year, covered clothing, books, and school registration. In return, the student has committed to giving back to her community upon graduation. In April 2007 the program will come out of pilot stage and will expand to cover three or more students drawn from both river and mangrove villages in the region. Eventually scholarships will cover university study.

The only access to many riverside communities is by canoe.

Inés Morales Lastra, principal of Colegio Nacional Baron de Carondelet, selects the students and administers the program. The program is named after Alonso de Illescas, an escaped slave who lead African and indigenous people in the area during the 1600s.

For more information, please contact Peter Redvers-Lee at peter.redvers-lee@vanderbilt.edu.

Colegio Nacional Baron de Carondelet, the rural high school in Esmeraldas province in Ecuador were program administrator Inés Morales Lastra serves as principal

Getting to school early in the morning

The main walkway/street in a mangrove community

Ixamar Johana Mina Nazareno, first scholarship holder

Ixamar's mother, in doorway, and Ixamar's neighbors.
Ixamar lives with her neighbors as her mother is seriously ill.