Yachana Gourmet Key Administrative Staff Members

Below you'll find a brief description of Yachana Gourmet's key staff members along with their contact information. We hope that the information below will allow our customers to get to know us a little better. Moreover, we hope that by introducing you to the people that bring you Yachana Jungle Chocolate, we can encourage an open dialog between our customers and ourselves. Accordingly, should you have any questions, comments, and / or concerns which one of us might be able to address for you, please do not hesitate to contact us via email. We'd love to hear from you.

Douglas McMeekin
Founder and CEO of Yachana Gourmet
Founder and Executive Director of FUNEDESIN
Founder and CEO of Yachana Lodge
Email - douglas@funedesin.org

Douglas McMeekin is originally from Lexington , Kentucky . He moved to Ecuador in 1986 and has been here every since. Some in the jungle refer to him as the "crazy gringo" because there are few who are willing to dedicate their lives to working to help others and the environment. This is the personal mission of Douglas . The success of the different organizations that he has been instrumental in setting up is his permanence in the region. Most foundations come into the area, carry out projects, and leave. Few are willing to make a financial commitment and personal dedication to the people and region. It is incredible the impact, that started with the little bags of Yachana Jungle Chocolate, has had on the region. As a result of working with chocolate and cacao, two projects have been initiated, one funded by the Ecuadorian Canadian Fund and the other by the Inter American Development Bank to provide technical assistance to 2,500 small farmers producing cacao. This has raised their family income by providing a Fair Trade price for their cacao and is helping them in issues of food security, village banks and others. Douglas believes that when people feel there is hope, then solutions can be found to their problems.

Delfín Gualinga
Community Relations
Email - delfin@yachanagourmet.com

Delfin Gualinga is president of the board of the Yachana Gourmet corporation. Delfin is Quichua indigenous and has been associated with the organization for 9 years. He is from the small jungle indigenous village of Jatun Molino , on the Bobonasa River , accessible only by a 30-minute flight in a single engine plane. Delfin embodies the philosophy of FUNEDESIN and all of our operations. He is multi-faceted, having been trained in hotel management, accounting in the foundation office, is currently working primarily as a naturalist guide for Yachana Lodge, is helping some of the village banks we have established in some of their accounting problems, and represents the indigenous people for whom we work in the Amazon. Delfin studied English in southern Illinois and is tri-lingual, Quichua, Spanish and English. In his spare time, Delfín enjoys playing soccer and dancing and has aspirations to improve his English language skills.

Arturo Yanez
Field Operations Supervisor
Email - info@yachanagourmet.com

Arturo Yanez is vice-president of the board of Yachana Gourmet, manager of all Yachana Lodge operations and representative of FUNEDESIN in the region. Arturo has lived most of his life in the community of Mondaña on the Napo River , where Yachana Lodge is located. Though Arturo does not have a lot of formal education, he has an incredible ability to grasp concepts and analyze whether projects will work in the remote region or not. He is the push behind the latest project of the foundation, education. It is his hope that the success of Yachana Gourmet will provide the self-sustainability for the program of vocational education for the youth in the region. Arturo is the son of a colonists family that moved into the area in the mid 1980's. He is a knowledgeable and just voice for the farmers who are raising cacao for Yachana Jungle Chocolate. Arturo has 9 years with the organization.