Wednesday, March 30, 2011

MySmallHelp continues to work in Peru


Louise Whitaker
28th March 2011

Following the work undertaken by Leander Hollings and numerous volunteers working with MySmallHelp , Leander had decided to continue working in Peru for the forseeable future.  The first stage in this decision was getting MySmallHelp registered as a Peruvian Association (similar to NGO status) which took several months and was surrounded by the usual red tape!

As the guinea pig project is now nearly self sustaining and as Leander´s initial motivation 5 years ago was to set up projects to help marginalized children access education, this will be the charity´s primary focus.
There are two geographical locations where MySmallHelp will work in Peru, Ollantytambo in the Sacred Valley beyond Cusco and a barrio of Trujillo called El Milagro, which is around 10 hours north of Lima by bus, in the coastal dessert.

In Ollantytambo MySmallHelp in partnership with Awamaki, an American run NGO have identified around 40 children who are in need of assistance. These children are marginalized through poverty, social problems within the family or disability- and sometimes all three.

The work of MySmallHelp is centered around understanding the needs of each family, helping illiterate parents complete all relevant paperwork required for their children to attend school and be entitled to state benefits such as healthcare.  Funding in the form of child sponsorship will be looked for to support the family in their initial requirements, whether it be paying the fees to enable to child to attend school or paying for specific equipment or tutoring as required by disabled children. Each family will be provided for on a needs identification basis. 

Details of the childrens needs can be found at
Donors will be encouraged to support the child through a monthly child sponsorship fee which will fund the identified requirement and provide additional services such as those of a child psychologist, nutritionalist and education specialists to visit the children and families where an identified need has been seen.

In Trujillo the system is much the same. Here there are 16 children from 5 famillies who through poverty and the absence of their fathers have not been able to attend school as they have been working on the rubbish dump with their mothers to fund the family. MySmallHelp hopes to help these children, again through the form of child sponsorship, to deliver the same support to get the children in to school as is being offered to families in Ollantytambo.


No comments: