UN FOOD AGENCY SIGNS AGREEMENT TO HELP INDIGENOUS COMMUNITIES IN ECUADOR

The Untied Nations World Food Programme has signed a deal, lasting until the year 2010, to aid indigenous communities which live isolated from the modern world and were relatively unknown until recently in Ecuador's northern border region.

The Federation of Awa Indigenous Communities of Ecuador, also known as AWA, resides in the South American country's highlands and in the areas close to its border with Colombia, where some AWA came from and 14,000 of still live today.

They were granted citizenship by the Ecuadorian Government in 1985, but today, the group is being threatened off their territory by lumber companies, according to WFP.

The agency entered into an agreement, signed on Monday with the International Organization for Migration (IOM), to carry out projects in the country's north. The first three schemes involve the rehabilitation of schools, the provision of heath education materials for a clinic and the revival and construction of health centres.

WFP will lend its technical and operational expertise as well as manage the finances, while IOM will aid in the follow-up of projects and create and information database.