THE MINDO PROJECT

Welcome to the Mindo Project! My name is Ryan Patel, and since I was four months old, I have traveled the world with my parents.  I became passionate about discovering the various cultures around the world. On our most recent summer trip, we visited a small, cloud-forest city called Mindo in Ecuador. While discovering Mindo, we met a bird-watching tour guide, Marcelo, who took us on a pre-dawn forest excursion. During the tour, Marcelo told us about a project he was working on to introduce conservationism to the youth of his country. Marcelo's passion moved us so much that we decided to contribute to his cause. He made us honorary members of his project, and he also sends us weekly reports and photos of his progress. As a result of this experience, I decided to create an organization to support conservation efforts like Marcelo's in Mindo and hopefully in other countries I travel to in the future.  We adopted this hidden gem and set up a project (with the help of local residents) to bring economic stimulus with respect to conservation of the environment.

The Mindo Project was born...