Ecuador - Casa Ochún Foundation

It is a first level organization, a private legal entity, non-profit organization, and a place for research, cultural production and dissemination. The Casa Ochún Foundation is a centre for social and cultural capacity building.  It has a school dedicated to training talents in artistic areas, for the most vulnerable population, mostly part of the afro Ecuadorian communities.  It has had the task of training children, young people and women in the consolidation of the ancestral traditions of the afro Ecuadorian communities. It works with several alternative groups, such as the music group Fusión Melanina, the dance group Ochún, the social and cultural network Eleguá, made up by children, youngsters and women of afro Ecuadorian communities in the outskirts of Quito. It has developed a psychological and self-esteem capacity building area, through therapies combining art and educational psychology techniques. The topics broached in these areas are gender equity, human rights, sexual and reproductive rights, racism and negative discrimination, ethnic education and oral tradition, and knowledge of the history of the afro Ecuadorian people.