We have continued to struggle against the odds over the past few years to overcome the obstacles faced by our staff and children at the refuge, while at the same time addressing the conflicting issues around the world which have all made fundraising for a project such as ours extremely challenging.
See various articles as featured recently by the Peru Support Group.
Peru was reeling from the Covid-19 pandemic. It suffered the world’s highest mortality rate – more than 0.65% of its population died from the virus – while lockdowns drove up unemployment. The poverty rate in 2021 stood at 25.9%. Pre-pandemic it was 20% according to Peru’s National Statistics Institute.
The Food and Agriculture Organisation said that more than half of Peru’s 33.4 million population were food insecure, lacking regular access to enough safe and nutritious food for normal growth, development and an active and healthy life. This compared to less than a quarter before the pandemic.
As a result, a growing number of Peruvians resorted to soup kitchens known as ollas comunes. While continuing to grow food, especially luxury fruit, for export rather than growing food for home consumption Peru is particularly vulnerable to global inflation and the economic fallout of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, depending as it does on imports of wheat, oil and fertilisers.
In our own kitchen garden at the refuge we produce fresh fruit and vegetables for our own consumption and, at times when we have a surplus, we sell produce to our staff and local people.
Also we have ourselves been able to support some local ollas comunes by acting as a local hub to distribute donated food supplies.
But we do need donations from existing and new supporters to maintain our work at the required level. Please DONATE via this page.
