Jungle Kids for Christ
Jungle Kids for Christ (JKC), is a mission organization that works in the Amazon Jungle region of Ecuador. They have a couple of different branches that they work with, but the main area being their school. For education teams coming, they will have the opportunity to work in a classroom setting, helping and working alongside the teachers. Mission teams coming have the opportunity to work with on campus work projects, the Resident home and their Basketball program.
Antioch Christian Academy is the main school campus, and where a lot of work projects will take place. Founded by a missionary family, the father of the family was originally from Ecuador, and the mother was feeling called to work in Ecuador. They started by fostering kids in the Misahuallí community. The locals saw how they were raising both their blood-related children as well as their foster children, and saw how well-behaved they all were. The locals then asked for the couple to teach their kids, and that was the start of the school. Now there are 240 students at the school, and they have had two rounds of graduations, with some of the graduated students attending colleges in the U.S. and around the world.
The school has a full range of classes, but one of the subjects that groups have the opportunity to work alongside is English classes. Antioch has beginner to advanced English classes, and a fair amount of the students are fluent in English. Working with the classes typically means helping the teachers, or even possibly helping run a workshop. The way all classes are taught at JKC is different from the public school system in Ecuador. At JKC they focus on teaching the kids more about thinking for themselves than just memorizing information. The teachers only try to implement rules that work in a classroom.
Another aspect that ties into Antioch is their resident home. Some of the children that attend Antioch live deeper in the jungle in a different community that takes hours to reach and requires many different forms of transportation. So, Antioch offers a house for some of the girl students that live in those jungle communities, so that way they only have to commute every other weekend. As of the autumn semester 2024, 8 girls live in the resident home. There is a Christian Ecuadorian mother-daughter duo that lives in the house with the girls and provides a healthy relationship and role models that are Christian. The jungle community the girls live in is a heavily witchcraft community, so when they get to live in the house, they get a break from that and get to live in a house that is full of the love of Christ. The girls that live in the resident house are very intelligent and can speak Spanish, kichwa/Quechua, and English. The girls are taught in the house and on campus to stand up for themselves and not to be pushed around by a machismo culture.
With JKC there is a desire to not just be active in the children's lives, but also in the community. JKC also works alongside the communities they live in to try and have an active role in the communities so that the relationships can be healthy. They work to try and help the communities solve issues they have with the resources that the community has. Not trying to fix problems the community does not have, and not throwing money and other resources at problems that require relationships. One aspect of community development that JKC works with is their basketball program. The basketball program teaches kids important lessons such as how to work hard towards goals, win and lose gracefully, have a healthy and consistent schedule, character building, and healthy discipline. They work to have healthy community building through competition. The basketball program has outreach with three different communities, Misahuallí, Antioch, and Pukichikta.
Visiting groups can expect humidity, and hot weather, as well as rain. Work projects on campus, helping with classes, bringing materials, and doing all these things with a joyful attitude are what JKC needs from visiting groups.
Jungle Kids for Christ is excited to host your Experiential Tour group. Experiential Tour groups that are likely to work alongside are Service groups, Education groups, and Nursing groups, but any group is welcome to visit.
About the Author:
Alexander Bole
My connection to L&LI: Student with Living and Learning Int. Quito, and intern with Experiential Tours in Ecuador.
What my role is: I go to the Location sites that are to be visited by Experiential Tours and collect information for the groups that will be working there.
Fun Fact: I started skiing when I was three years old, but switched over to snowboarding when I was eight years old, and have received some of my many injuries from this sport!