Week 1

Fundación Esquel (Esquel Foundation) is a private non-profit foundation in Ecuador that works for sustainable human development and the improvement in the quality of life of Ecuador's low income population by the construction of a democratic, responsable and solidary society.

I arrive to Esquel to work with them in a project funded by UN Women Ecuador and FES-Ildis Ecuador named "Transformando Nuestras Vidas: Construyendo Nuestra Agenda de Prioridades" (Transforming Our Lives: Building Our Priorities Agenda).

The project designed by Esquel Foundation had the objective of working with women of low-income organizations in order to discuss the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development (which established the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and in particular importance to this project, recognizes the importance of women empowerment in order to achieve sustainable development for all with, Goal 5: Achieve gender equality and empower for all women and girls) and the New Urban Agenda (adopted in Quito, Ecuador 2016) and within these frameworks elaborate a women's agenda that spoke the needs of women living in Ecuador.

What do the women of Ecuador want, need, demand from their government and society in order to develop in a sustainable manner? Was the main question of the project. How do we get heard and how do we exercise our demands? Were the follow up questions.

I arrived after the first two stages of the project were completed:

1. A national encounter with women from all over the country in Quito to discuss the project and its short term and long term objectives.

2. Regional and local workshops discussing the 2030 Agenda, the New Urban Agenda and the construction of local and national women's agendas.

Six stages were to be completed upon my arrival:

3. Build the Local Women's Agendas

4. Deliver the Local Women's Agendas to local governmental representatives

5. Build the National Women's Agenda

6. National Encounter with women to approve the Agenda and form a working woman's group and a National Encounter with women of low-income NGO's and long standing female ecuadorian politicians

Within my first week at Esquel I got to know the project, understand its purpose and urgent need for a project of this type. As well, I got to meet the people I would be working with.

In this project I got the privilege of working with two fantastic politicians, professionals, feminist, mothers and women:

- Dolores Padilla (described by a celebrated Ecuadorian journalist as the first feminist in Ecuador "she was a feminist when feminism didn't exist in this country"). Dolores ran for office as vice-president in 2006 (the party she ran with did not obtain office therefore I often joke with her and call her "the Ecuadorian Hillary Clinton") and she was the founder of the renowed social program that focusses of working children in Ecuador "Working Boy". Now Dolores serves as general counsel at Esquel Foundation and was one of the leaders of this project.

- Margarita Carranco has served as president of a number of social organizations, was the vice-mayor of Quito in 2009 and before devoting herself to work in this project with Esquel she was the Secretary of Social Inclusion at Quito's City Hall.

Is very important for me to mention that the women invited to be part of the project are women who are part of low income civil society organizations. One of the objectives of this project was to grasp the vast diversity and reality of the women living in the Ecuadorian territory that is why indigenous, afroecuadorian, LGBTI, refugees and elder citizens groups and organizations of women were invited to be part of the creation the agenda.*

*Organizations of disable women were search but one of the conclusions of this project is that women with disabilities are not organized in Ecuador.

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