Cuylandia, our Peruvian Guinea Pig Project with Mysmallhelp Peru

24^th March 2011

Louise Whitaker

Around this time last year, Peros kindly donated money to help the flood affected region of Paucarbamba (in the Sacred Valley of Peru) get back on their feet. After initial support of food, shelter and school equipment for the children we spoke with the community members and they wanted the donated money to help them develop small businesses,  so they could generate income quickly to rebuild their houses.

As guinea pig meat is seen as a delicacy in Peru, as they are cheap and relatively easy to rear and because they are ready to sell after 6 months of so after the initial set up, we supported the 19 families who wished to participate in the project with tools they needed to set up and offered them the support of a Peruvian Agronomist, Nelida.

All 19 members have been trained in how to best care for the guinea pigs , the best type of food for them so they grow to be big and strong, how to breed and maintain a selection of the best guinea pigs for future breeding and they have received training on the best places to sell them.

Nelida our agronomist has been delighted with the success of the project so far, with each family now having either their first guinea pig births or having guinea pigs pregnant with the first litter. The first sale of the guinea pigs will take place in April and the community is going to hold a big food festival in June to celebrate their new businesses and to sell more guinea pigs.

Once these first sales have been made we are confident, as are the women, that the business will become self sustaining.  At a recent meeting the cooperative members agreed that they were delighted with their new businesses and the training they had been given and that after a little more support from the agronomist at the April sales of the guinea pigs, they would be able to work together without further financial support to run the project.

The pictures below show proud members of the community with their guinea pigs and Leander Hollings, Director of Mysmallhelp, speaking to the women at a recent meeting.