History of origin
“En un mundo que se destruye, una juventud que construye” - “In a world that is destroying itself, a youth that is building up”
Under this motto, Ana María (Anita) Bonilla from Ambato (Ecuador) has been campaigning since 1980 to improve the educational opportunities of children from economically disadvantaged families in order to fight against child labor and against the oppression of indigenous peoples. She was 16 years old when she started her voluntary work at MECIT. Two years later, she is the first woman to be elected president of the movement and her encourages to fight on in order to reduce the glaring social and economic inequalities in the Ecuadorian society.
The first contact to El Salado
The founders of our association: Ingrid Kern, Cornelia Brandenstein-Nuding, Hans Stapperfenne and Gerhard Kuntz met Anita Bonilla, who has finished her studies in social science in 1991, and our partner organisation MECIT in 1992 during stays with “Bread for the World” in Ecuador. They also make the acquaintance of César Tixilema, who as a teenager also actively supports the goals of the youth movement and is active in local politics. The focus of his political commitment is on his birthplace El Salado or the municipality of Llangahua, to which the village belongs.
The idea of ​​founding an association
In 1993, Anita and César visit their friends in Germany. A long-term friendship emerges from hospitality, from which common ideas for the creation of educational institutions in rural areas soon develop. Gerhard, Hans, Ingrid and Cornelia are infected by the ambitious commitment of the indigenous youth movement MECIT, which fights for their rights and shapes their future in a self-determined manner.
The idea of ​​founding an association is slowly growing. This is supposed to support the commitment of Anita and César in El Salado through the exchange with young people from Germany.
In August 2004, Gerhard Kuntz, Hans Stapperfenne, Ingrid Kern, and Cornelia Brandenstein-Nuding founded the association with its headquarters in Germany. A little later, Dorothea Eichel becomes a member of the board and supports the association's work by managing the finances. The focus of stupor mundi eV's commitment will be the village of El Salado and the community of Llangahua in the province of Tungurahua, Ecuador. There the association can count on the support of Anita Bonilla and César Tixilema to this day.
The construction of "la hospedería"
In 2005, the German-Ecuadorian cooperation was sealed with the construction of the “hospedería” in the village of El Salado. This is a guest house with three bedrooms, a large eat-in kitchen, bathrooms and a large entrance area. The house was built by the village community according to the plans of a Mexican architect and offers the volunteers a comfortable home for the duration of their stay in El Salado, Llangahua.
Through long and repeated stays by all board members in El Salado and Ambato, close relationships and friendships have grown with the local people with whom we are in regular contact.