Cuenca news today, written for expats

Cuenca municipal museums will offer free vacation programs for children ages 6 to 12 in July and August. The options include art workshops at MMAM and creative heritage activities at the Museo de la Paja Toquilla y el Sombrero.

Cuenca’s new Parque de los Jóvenes is under construction with a 3,000-person agora, sports courts, walking paths and a planned pedestrian bridge over the Yanuncay. The project has a roughly $2.8 million investment and is scheduled through the end of the year.

People affected by the closure of Cooperativa CREA have asked Acting Mayor Marisol Peñaloza for an urgent audience. The group says affected families include children, older adults, people with disabilities and migrants who trusted their savings to the cooperative.

Cuenca will hold citizen assemblies in June and July with representatives of the city’s 15 urban parishes to help define priorities for the 2027 participatory budget. The first meeting is for Yanuncay residents on June 29 at 18:30.

More than 60% of Cuenca’s drinking water comes from the Cajas páramo ecosystem, and in some periods that dependence can approach 70%. On Ecuador’s National Páramo Day, local experts are warning that these high mountain wetlands are not scenery; they are the city’s water system.

Ecuador and Peru are discussing a regional air route that could connect Cuenca with Chiclayo, and eventually link Galápagos, Cuenca, Chiclayo and Cuzco. The idea follows an open-skies memorandum signed during the IV Andean Air Transport Forum in Quito.