UPS professor Freddy Simbaña Pillajo, a member of the Education and Interculturality Research Group (Grupo de Investigación en Educación e Interculturalidad GIEI), took part in the international seminar: "Discrimination, exclusion and poverty of urban indigenous people in the Americas" which took place in Mexico in the month of august. This seminar was organized by the Mexican National Council of Science and Technology (CONACYT for its acronym in Spanish), Colegio de  la  Frontera  Sur (ECOSUR and the Latin American Council of Social Sciences (CLASCO). The seminar was attended by specialists from 21 academic and scientific institutions from Latin America, Canada and the USA.

The presentation, done online, was titled "El barrio y la calle, otro espacio de exclusión social. Caso indígenas urbanos en la ciudad de Quito". The aim of this presentation was to show the results of the anthropological – ethnographic work which was carried out on Chimborazo Street in Quito's historic center, where there were relationships between the indigenous population, the white mestizos and several state institutions.

The historical review of the Chimborazo Street in the San Roque Parish was done from a review of the main studies produced in the last decade, which study the historic center of the city and its socio-historical processes.

Among the results, Simbaña evidenced that the permanent presence of indigenous groups in this sector is not well accepted by those who are considered old neighbors. This presence has "forced" inhabitants to abandon this traditional neighborhood and those who still love there are in constant disagreement. In fact, it is common that everything that goes wrong (garbage, insecurity and poverty) are attributed to the urban indigenous population.

Finally, a mapping of the organizational processes and ways of impact on the management were done in order to define programs and actions related to urban indigenous people from the nineties in the Municipality of Quito.