Relief Efforts in Ecuador
CARE has been present in the Latin America and Caribbean region since 1954. In 2018, CARE began scaling up operations across Latin America to address the growing needs in the region.
Since 2018, CARE has been providing humanitarian assistance to Venezuelan populations in Huaquillas, Ibarra, Quito, Tulcán, and Lago Agrio. CARE is providing multi-purpose cash transfers to some of the most vulnerable new arrivals, as well as vouchers to access basic healthcare services. CARE also provides sessions on preventing gender-based violence and trafficking and provides sexual and reproductive health and psychosocial support. CARE Ecuador and its partners are also working to upgrade shelters and provide hygiene promotion to new arrivals.
As of the end of 2019, Ecuador was hosting an estimated number of 500,000 Venezuelan refugees and migrants. Recently, the number of refugees allowed to enter Ecuador and Peru has drastically decreased, leaving Venezuelans in these countries more vulnerable to abuse, violence, and trafficking. This decline also restricts their access to essential services such as health care, education, food security, and protection.
CARE Ecuador’s other projects have focused on democracy and governance, education, health, water and sanitation, natural resource management, incomes and livelihoods, women’s empowerment and gender equality, economic development, climate change adaptation and emergency and humanitarian work. Through all our programs, we share our skills and knowledge with key local and national actors to build their capacity for development. We also support approaches developed by excluded groups and work with them to implement these.
CARE started working in Ecuador in 1962 with the aim of improving the standard of living of Ecuador’s indigenous ethnic groups.