MySmallHelp Peru December Newsletter
Greetings from Peru! I, Julia Vanderham, have had the pleasure of working with MysmallHelp since August, when Leander left to visit Nepal and our projects in Trujillo. MySmallHelp Peru has had a busy and exciting three months, so I’m happy to be giving an overview of what we’ve been up to…
The Bus Project
One of MySmallHelp’s main projects in the Sacred Valley is a bus, which provides school transportation to a group of 11 special needs children. These children, who are from Ollantaytambo and its surrounding areas, attend the amazing Arco Iris School in Urubamba. For these children, Arco Iris is their only educational option. The school not only provides the children with lifeskills training and encourages them to realize how much they are capable of, but also gives them access to a social worker, psychologist, and a warm lunch every day. It has been amazing to see the difference the school has made in each child.
The children live up to a 40-minute drive away from the school, so it is often impossible for their parents to take them every day (if they are lucky enough to have parents who value their education). Some are in wheelchairs and our youngest is an adorable 3 year old with downs syndrome, who needs to be held by someone to and from school. Transportation is therefore a large challenge, but MSH believes that if overcoming this one obstacle can make such a difference in their lives, it’s well worth it. Our bus therefore picks up each child at or near their house, and drops them off at the end of the day.
Of course, the project has evolved to be much more than a simple school bus. MySmallHelp liaises between the school and the families, communicating about schedules and other matters that arise at school. Our hilarious and patient driver Ruben makes every drive an interesting one, and together he and the children deal with road closures, locked houses and whatever else is thrown their way.
This is of course where volunteers come to play a huge role in supporting this important project. We need to take attendance everyday to have a record of which children are actually using the bus, and to make sure we take home everyone we brought in. We coordinate with the parents about school holidays, what clothes the kids need to wear for their frequent parades and when the parents need to accompany their kids for medical campaigns or other events. With 11 special needs children together on a bus, someone is also needed to keep order, making sure that all arms and heads are inside the bus and that everyone is getting along. MSH depends on our volunteers to make sure that the bus runs smoothly- they are an integral part of our success. We have loved having Lulu, a teacher from England, helping us throughout the month of November and will miss her when she goes!
We fund the bus partly through private donations. In an effort to work with the local government and to make the bus more sustainable, MSH has partnered with the municipality of Ollantaytambo. They generously offered to take over half of the cost, but the Peruvian bureaucratic machine moves slowly, and they are currently 3 months behind in their payments. This has obviously been a huge challenge for MSH. We have been supplementing the cost with small, in-country fundraising activities but are looking for a more permanent funding source to ensure that this project continues.
The Eye Campaign
In September, MSH Peru had the pleasure of hosting a visiting group of ophthalmologists who, in just 2 days, were able to give eye exams to over 60 patients and provide glasses for anyone who needed them! It was amazing to see Ian, Debbie, Gregorio, Jenny, and Antonio work in Patacancha, a community located about an hour up from Ollantaytambo. The vast majority of people there spoke only Quechua and are illiterarte, so using English to Spanish then Spanish to Quechua translation, and symbols and pictures instead of letters, they were able to give eye tests to over 30 people, the majority of them women who make their money doing intricate weaving that requires good vision.
On the second morning, they saw a group of women knitters in Ollantaytambo. In the afternoon went to the Arco Irish school for special needs children to give exams to the students and their families. Giving eye exams to special needs kids provided a whole host of other challenges, but our lovely eye team approached every situation with creativity, patience and compassion- it was an absolute joy for me to work with them. You can read more about their adventures on the MSH Peru blog: http://mysmallhelp.blogspot.com/.
The team brought over a hundred pairs of donated glasses with them, but some people needed specialized prescriptions. Through their connections in London, they were able to find someone to provide 3 free pairs of specialty glasses, which just recently arrived in Peru. I delivered one pair to Ricardo, a young man with a serious problem in one eye, last week. He was huddled around a small TV with his brothers, sisters and cousins, watching a bootleg copy of “Clash of the Titans”. When I gave him the glasses, he made me sit for 20 minutes while he excitedly described all of the various mythical monsters that he could now see with such clarity. Thank you so much to everyone who made this possible!
The Bake Sale
In the first week of November, the kids we usually transport to a special needs school in Urubamba had a week of vacation, so we wanted to organize an activity for them. After getting permission from the municipality in Ollantaytambo, we decided to do a little bake sale in the main plaza. We always like activities that let the kids do something practical (baking, selling, etc.) and also that encourage them to be visible members of their community.
On Thursday afternoon we met in our volunteer house with some of the kids and our lovely volunteer Lulu, to bake some cakes and some mini-pizzas. It was a lovely afternoon, and it was great to see the kids apply all that they had learned in their lifeskills classes at school.
On Friday morning we set up a little table in the plaza, and began to sell cakes and avocado sandwiches for one sole and mini pizzas for two soles. It was a great day. Lourdes, Luis Alberto and Yasmira chatted and many of their family members came out to support them. We sold out almost everything we made, with lots of compliments on our delicious banana bread.
With the hard work of Lourdes, Luis Alberto, Yasmira and Lulu, we made about 50 soles in two hours- not a bad day’s work!
Thank you for your support
Love
Julia and the MSH Peru team
P.S. We acknowledge that this is all about Peru - Nepal’s update to come!
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