Our basic responsibility focuses on support for our refuge for children. But from time to time Project Peru undertakes practical, desperately needed initiatives in the vast, sandy shanty towns that extend over the bare, dry foothills of the Andes that loom over the area where our refuge is located. We are regularly in touch with local groups (mainly of women) who organise events and Comedores (shared dining rooms) and Ollas Comunes* (shared ‘cooking pots’) where for a minimum charge the marginalised can share a meal … in the latter case* adding any foodstuffs they have to the shared cooking pot.
We receive many requests for help but one particular Olla Común was in a desperate state of collapse. Yet the lady was struggling on. Project Peru decided to rebuild with the help of some of our older boys and a small group of volunteers from abroad, all of whom had helped on previous occasions. Our friend and fabulous builder / electrician decided to lay a concrete flood before the arrival of the volunteers so that they could then advance with the walls and the roof. So with the fantastic assistance from four of our older boys who hauled bags of cement and sand up the steep slopes to the Olla Commún they all helped to lay the floor in the midst of the shanty town.
We had to complete everything in four days as the volunteers had little time. Some photos below show the volunteers hammering the walls together, working hard to complete the Olla Común … and enjoying every moment. The boys from the refuge who had helped so much had to stagger back to school feeling muscles they had never felt before!
We need your ongoing support and encouragement to make such initiatives possible.
For information about volunteering in Peru see:
For more on our work in the wider community see:
