Having background knowledge of history and culture is important to know WHY Fundacion Rescate exists.

Back in the 1980s and 1990s there was a huge immigration wave of people that went to the U.S. Many seeking a better life for themselves and their families. However, adults that went left their children with just one parent, or in the care of another adult (grandma, aunt, uncle, etc).

There is a generation of children that have grown up not knowing their father or both of their parents, or at least for a large portion of their life. This left them with an incredible hole in their life. Their parents often would send money to Ecuador, and kids/adolescents would use the money to buy the latest fashion wear, drugs, alcohol, prostitution, anything to appear that all was well and help fill the hole left by a missing parent and their love. Habits and addictions were started.

A generation that also wasn’t exposed to a healthy, functional, nuclear family. That did not grow up seeing how a husband and wife interacted. This generation has now grown up, and are forming their own families with no idea of what a functional family looks or acts like. Abuse in the form of physical, emotional, and sexual are very common. Some are repeating the cycle and in 2020/2021 there has been an increase in people in our area trying to immigrate to the U.S. Some have stuck around, but are at a loss of how to function in a family, and are still buried in the habits of alcohol, drugs, and prostitution because they have not dealt with the hole that was left.

While Sucua is quite wealthy (due to the amount of money that has been sent or people brought back after returning from the U.S.), the local spiritually is poor, and families are broken.