Through the Juventud Verde (Youth Green) project, implemented by World Vision, young people across the Ecuadorian Amazon are developing sustainable enterprises that generate income, strengthen communities and protect the forest. Yanua and Erika are among a growing number of young entrepreneurs finding purpose, leadership and opportunity in the places they call home.
Building businesses rooted in the Amazon
When Yanua and Erika talk about their work, they don’t begin with tourism or essential oils. Both begin with place.
Yanua describes herself as “a daughter of the forest”. Today, she helps lead Shakaim, a community-based tourism initiative in the Ecuadorian Amazon that brings together culture, environmental stewardship and collective participation. Much of her work focuses on helping children and young people understand the territory that has shaped their communities for generations. Walking among the trees, identifying plants and listening to the river are not simply educational activities. They are part of a wider effort to ensure that knowledge, culture and responsibility for the forest continue to be passed on.
“Today, I have returned to share what I have learned and strengthen what has always been here: our knowledge, our culture and our care for the forest.”
For Erika, the starting point was watching family members and community leaders sustain an essential oils enterprise that had become an important part of community life. What began as curiosity gradually became commitment as she recognised the importance of preserving not only a source of income, but also the knowledge, traditions and relationships that sustained it.
Although their enterprises operate in different sectors, they are driven by a similar belief: that economic opportunity, cultural identity and environmental stewardship can reinforce one another. Community-based tourism creates space for culture, territory and environmental knowledge to be shared with others. Essential oils generate income while helping keep local production systems and community organisation alive.
For both young entrepreneurs, these initiatives are about more than business. They are ways of strengthening community life, preserving knowledge and creating reasons for young people to remain connected to the Amazon.
“Seeing the community grow in harmony with the forest gives us the strength to continue. As long as the forest lives, we will live too.”
That commitment was already shaping their work long before they joined Juventud Verde. What the project has offered is something different: new tools, new opportunities and the chance to turn their ideas into stronger, more sustainable enterprises.
Growing as entrepreneurs and leaders
Leadership looks different for Yanua and Erika.
For Yanua, it means creating spaces where different generations can shape the future together. Through the Shakaim community tourism initiative, children, young people, elders and community leaders all contribute ideas and participate in decisions about the enterprise’s direction. Leadership is as much about listening and creating opportunities for participation as it is about guiding others.
For Erika, leadership has developed through service to her community. One of her earliest influences was her godmother Bertila, a community leader whose vision shaped how Erika came to understand the purpose of the enterprise.
“She believed not only in generating income for families, but in doing so while preserving culture, traditions and the sense of community that binds us together. Without realizing it, she became my role model.”
After Bertila died, the enterprise entered a difficult period. Members stopped participating, the organisation lost strength and, in Erika’s words, it seemed that everything built over the years could disappear. Her own involvement developed gradually in the years that followed, as she learned from others, gained experience representing the enterprise at local fairs and eventually took on greater responsibility for sustaining it.
Yanua and Erika already had a clear sense of purpose. Juventud Verde has helped amplify their leadership, equipping them with the skills, resources and networks needed to strengthen their enterprises and expand their impact within their communities.
Through training, mentoring and practical support, Yanua, Erika and more than 280 other young people have strengthened skills in business planning, enterprise management, value creation and strategic thinking. Seed funding has enabled participating enterprises to invest in equipment, tools and materials, helping transform ideas and aspirations into stronger and more sustainable businesses.
For Yanua, that support has helped strengthen Shakaim’s organisational structure and accelerate plans to improve community tourism infrastructure while developing a stronger identity for the initiative. For Erika, it has contributed to the growth of an enterprise that is reaching more families, strengthening its organisation and expanding opportunities to connect with new markets.
Just as importantly, Juventud Verde has connected young entrepreneurs to wider networks, exchanges and learning opportunities. Across the Ecuadorian Amazon, participants are not only improving products and services, but also learning from one another, sharing experiences and building confidence in what they can achieve collectively.
As Erika reflects:
“When we received the news that we had been selected, I felt immense joy. Not only for myself, but for the entire association. From that moment on, we began the process of learning and strengthening.”
That process of strengthening extends beyond individual enterprises. It enables young people to think beyond day-to-day survival, develop longer-term ambitions and imagine what a thriving future for their communities could look like. The question is no longer whether their initiatives can survive, but how far they can go.
Scaling their vision for the Amazon
Yanua and Erika see their enterprises as part of a larger vision for their communities and the Amazon.
For Yanua, that vision centres on strengthening Shakaim as a community-led tourism initiative where culture, environmental stewardship and collective participation come together. With support from Juventud Verde, the initiative is improving its infrastructure, developing its own brand and creating new opportunities for visitors to engage with the knowledge, traditions and landscapes that have sustained Amazonian communities for generations.
For Erika, the future lies in expanding the reach of the essential oils enterprise while continuing to support the families who cultivate and care for the Amazonian landscapes on which it depends. Improved organisation, stronger technical knowledge and new market opportunities are helping transform an initiative that once faced uncertainty into one with renewed momentum and ambition.
Erika’s ambition for the enterprise is closely connected to what it can make possible for the wider community.
“Above all, it is a way to show that when a community chooses not to give up, it can always rise again.”
That determination continues to guide her work today. Preserving what previous generations created is important, but so is ensuring that it can grow, adapt and create new opportunities for the future.
What connects both stories is a belief that economic development and environmental stewardship can move in the same direction. Through sustainable enterprises, they are creating income, strengthening community resilience and demonstrating that local knowledge remains a valuable resource for the future.
Their vision for the Amazon is not limited to protecting what already exists. It is about creating opportunities that allow communities to thrive, young people to lead and cultural knowledge to continue evolving across generations.
In that sense, tourism and essential oils are only part of the story. What Yanua and Erika are ultimately building is confidence in the future of their territories and in the ability of young people to shape what comes next.