Fundación Azúcar: Promoting Afro-Ecuadorian Culture, Beauty and Women's Political Participation
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The Afro-Ecuadorian Foundation of Social and Cultural Development, Azúcar, is an organization of Afro-Ecuadorian women, and one of the branches in Quito of the CONAMUNE, National Council of Black Women of Ecuador. It dates back to the late 1990s. Fundación Azúcar promotes Afro-descendant culture in different spaces of "recovery of ancestral memory", with its music and dance groups. Azúcar has also developed material for exhibitions on the history and cultural expressions of Afro-Ecuadorians from the ancestral territories of Esmeraldas (coast) and the valleys of Chota and Mira (highlands). It organizes conferences and workshops on these topics.
The Fundación Azúcar has promoted several lines of work. Its members have worked on the issue of gender violence through the training of young people who have replicated workshops on these topics using a peer learning methodology. Azúcar also runs workshops on human, collective, women's and children's rights, on sexual and reproductive health and on intra-family violence.
In 2017, they also held the first training school in political education for Afro-Ecuadorian women in collaboration with the Central University of Ecuador. Thirty women completed the training process. With several universities, Azúcar is also organizing an "Afro-Ecuadorian Studies Curriculum", which aims to be a space for the academic training of those interested in the Afro-Ecuadorian experience. Running a training school had long been an aspiration of the women of Afro-Ecuadorian organizations, which finally materialized in 2016 with the leadership of Azúcar.
Another area of action consists in promoting an Afro aesthetic in body and hair. Fundación Azúcar has organized several parades in which the value of Afro beauty is encouraged and in which Afro-Ecuadorian girls and boys participate. Azúcar also works on social support issues for migrant children and single mothers who have settled in several neighborhoods in northern Quito.