For Immediate Release:	April 17, 2001
Sponsor Organization:	CARE
http://www.care.org/virtual_trip/ecuador/
ATLANTA (April 17, 2001) – To commemorate the 31st Earth Day this Sunday, April 22, CARE will launch a virtual field trip to Ecuador, taking web readers on an eco-adventure into one of South America’s last remaining coastal rainforests. The site will go live on Friday, April 20. Showcasing culture, conservation and development, the virtual field trip educates readers about work that strikes a sustainable balance between the often-competing needs of nature and man. Work that seeks to protect precious, but threatened natural resources and promote improvements in the lives of families living among or around these resources. On the virtual field trip, readers will journey by dugout canoe down narrow river passages where swirling waters sweep beneath dense green foliage. They’ll trek in the permanent dusk under a forest canopy of titanic trees. And they’ll be among the first to visit remote indigenous communities working with CARE to conserve this isolated and endangered world. Visitors to the site also can send a virtual postcard and download a screensaver from the trip. Launched in May 1999 with a visit to Bolivia, CARE’s virtual field trips have been featured as hot and cool sites by USA Today and Netscape. They are among the most popular features on the relief and development organization’s web site. Other virtual field trips have taken readers to Ghana, Haiti, Honduras, Kosovo, Mali, Madagascar, Nepal and Peru. CARE’s virtual field trips are accessible from the CARE web site at http://www.care.org. /> About CARE: CARE is one of the world’s largest international relief and development organizations. In 2000, CARE programs benefited more than 27 million people in more than 60 countries in Africa, Asia and the Pacific, Europe, and Latin America and the Caribbean. Founded in 1945, CARE is known by many in the United States for the now-famous CARE Packages that brought food and other essentials to survivors of World War II. The organization has evolved over the years, however, and today embraces a mission that seeks to achieve lasting solutions over poverty. CARE works with people, families and communities to help them overcome the greatest threats to their survival and help them realize their rights and potential while, at the same time, preserving their surrounding environment. CARE programs focus on small business assistance, primary health care, nutrition, girls’ and basic education, agriculture and natural resource management, reproductive health and emergency relief. Contact: In Atlanta: Allen Clinton, 404-979-9206; clinton@care.org.