Spiderman visits Paru Paru

On his third day, Alan went with Leander Hollings, Andres and a schoolfriend of Andres to Paru Paru. Paru Paru is the village Andres was born and raised in. It is located above Calca and therefore quite a long journey from Cusco, where Andres now lives. Andres never gets the opportunity to visit Paru Paru since being struck with Poliomielitis.


The group visited Paru Paru´s primary school, where Andres insisted on handing out bananas to the children, which was sponsored by Loki Hostel. Not able to part the bananas himself, he was helped by his schoolfriend to distribute the fruit. The children loved his wheelchair, and with Spiderman carrying Andres where wheelchair access was not possible, they were quite the attraction.





Giving out fruit

Andres and the schoolchildren




Andres and Spiderman were shown the school´s little museum with artefacts found in the area. The children themselves explained the meaning and use of each artifact, using sign language as the inhabitants of this little village only speak Quechua.

Later, the group went to look at a piece of land which Andres is the rightful owner. It is the place he lived when he could still walk, growing up a normal child like anyone else; during the time he had spent in hospital, the land was used by relatives of his, which now makes it difficult to claim back. MSH is helping Andres to claim his land back, on which he wants to build a tourist house as a means of support for him and his community.


Revisiting the places Andres used to know as a child, the group went to see the lagoons above Paru Paru. By chance, they met a woman who turned out to be a childhood friend of Andres. The two had always walked to the lagoons together when Andres could still use his legs, so the reunion was a very happy one, as they had not seen each other or heard from each other in years.

Spiderman, Andres, and his childhood friend with her baby in front of one of the lagoons

Spiderman and Andres exploring the lagoons


The next highlight of the day was meeting Andres´ grandparents. As his parents both passed away when he was smaller, his grandparents are the closest relatives remaining for him, and because they live in such a remote area, they never get a chance to meet.

Andres with his grandparents


The day ended with the whole party watching a football game, one of Andres wishes, concluding this amazing day.

Spiderman visits Andres` school

Since 2010, after being released from hospital and moving into his own small room, Andres has been going to weekend school to help him reach his goal of studying at university.  It is a weekend school, which allows him to work during the week to finance his room and what he needs. He is a very capable and studious young man; his teachers and classmates think highly of him as he is sociable, dedicated and does not, in spite of his bodily condition, give up his dream of becoming a Systems Engineer.
His school celebrated its  anniversary last week, so Andres attended the celebration, together with Spiderman.

As always on these occasions, there were dances performed wearing the wonderful traditional costumes

 











One of Andres` teachers, Andres and Spiderman

Spiderman visits Andres and Anita

Aiming to raise awareness of the situation of the people living in poverty or with a disability, Loki Hostel´s bar manager Alan Cotton agreed to take the challenge of wearing a Spiderman costume for six full weeks, only allowed to take it off to shower. Loki  Hostel is aiming to give back to the locals by supporting MySmallHelp (MSH). So, the funds Alan raises as Spiderman go to MSH, helping us to finance the school bus project and support twelve families in the area of Ollantaytambo and Trujillo, enabling their children access to education.


Last week, Alan accompanied MSH´s director Leander Hollings for a few days.


On his first day, Alan went to visit two of the children MSH is currently supporting in Cusco, Andres and Anita.


Andres is a young man of 24, who was born a normal child who enjoyed, running, playing and leading a life like anyone else. After a few years however, he developed an illness called Poliomielitis that caused Paraplegia to develop. This meant he could no longer move around using his legs; he also had general body paralysis. Andres ended up living in the San Juan de Dios Clinic in Cusco for six years. His parents have since passed away, leaving him with no other relatives to take care of him. Andres is now in a wheelchair; his hands appear useless at first sight, but thanks to his strength and his eagerness to learn more every day, he soon proves us wrong when we see what this little pair of hands is capable of doing.


Andres has a charming personality which is apparent as soon as you meet him. He is very intelligent and has no complexes despite his condition. He has not been able to attend school regularly and MSH is helping him to attend weekend school so that he can catch up and continue to make progress. He is very capable and anxious to learn more. Currently, he is living in a room that is in no way adequate for his condition: He does not have access to a bathroom and struggles getting through the door in his wheelchair, always needing help to enter and leave his room. He finances himself through working as a computer instructor during the week, paying for his room and food, struggling to get by. It is his dream to go to university and study Systems Engineering, to become a teacher and help others who suffer from a disability and teach them that anything is possible.


MSH organized a wheelchair for Andres and is always in close contact with him, helping him with his school fees and materials and trying to help out with what he needs most. Right now, Andres is struggling to get back a piece of land he rightly owns in Paru Paru, the village he was born in. During his absence (due to his illness), his relatives started using the land,making it difficult for Andres to claim it back. MSH is communicating with the president of the community as well as Andres´ relatives in order to enable him to reclaim his property, on which he aims to build a tourist house to support him and his community.


Spiderman visited Andres in his room, getting to know this amazing person.
 

 Here, they are in front of Andres` door; the problem with the door is that it does not open properly, so Andres always has trouble going through in his wheelchair.


Anita is an 11-year-old girl who was born with two congenital disorders called myelomeningecele and hydrocephalos. These disorders required her to have a valve inserted in her head to alleviate the symptoms of hydrocephalos. She also has hip deformities and club foot, as well as a squint required her to wear lenses since she was four years old. She cannot walk on her own, so is in a wheelchair; also, she has contonence problems which force her  to wear nappies. Anita lives in social housing provided by Asociación pro vivienda together with her family. Her mother is currently unemployed and works full time as a house wife and carer for Anita. Her father works at an ironmonger´s, his minimum wage barely covers all the necessary expenses of his family.
Anita is a very kind, cheerful and playful girl who loves playing with her pets as animals are her passion. Her school teacher tells us that she is very sociable, clever and intelligent.  She is able to understand everything, only struggling with writing at a regular pace, which makes it difficult for her to keep up with the other children.


MSH has helped Anita get a new wheelchair, as she was using and old small one, so now she feels much more comfortable. Also, we provide her with her nappies (she needs to be changed three to four times a day) and help her with her transport so she can go to hospital for checkups.


Here, Spiderman is posing with Anita, her sisters and her mother in their little backyard;  Anita`s sisters always help their mother in the household and do everything so Anita feels comfortable.







 
Spiderman with one of Anita`s beloved pets

A day with the volunteers from Peru (Jorge and Vane Lozano)

By Jeena

A day with the volunteers from Peru (Jorge and Vane Lozano)

On 13th May 2012, Sunday afternoon, two kind hearted volunteers (Jorge and Vane Lozano) from Miami, United States visited MySmallHelp, Nepal with the aim to support the children of Nepal with lots of fancy and beautiful dresses. They brought three bags full of cloths for children, medical stuffs, dolls, tooth paste, toothbrush, shoes, socks and fancy clothes. Anjali and Alisha the children being supported by MSH, Nepal were provided the clothes and other gifts by the volunteers. They were very much happy and thankful especially the mother of the children was very much grateful for the support.

We all visited Marybert Orphanage to distribute  clothes and gifts  for everyone .The children were very happy and thankful to Jorge and Vane Lozano for everything. We all enjoyed a lot by singing and dancing . Also Jorge and Vane danced  with the children and enjoyed themselves. 

They were really happy to fill up the Auto books of the children with lots of love. They both loved the moment and happy to see the smiles on the face of the children. They also expressed their desire to come back to Nepal in the near future.

MSH, Nepal heartily wants to thank for the kind support to Jorge, Vane and all entire team who helped to donate all the things.

Volunteering experience of Caroline with MSH, Peru

By 

Caroline Sommer

                                      Volunteering experience of Caroline with MSH, Peru

Sitting on the Plaza de Armas in Ollantaytambo, I am surrounded by the day-to-day busyness of this little town. All around me, there are Ollantinos, attending to customers in their little shops or restaurants or selling handcrafted textiles, dressed in their traditional clothes, and looking down upon all this from the surrounding hills are the amazing ruins the Incas left behind. Everywhere there is laughter; the Peruvian temperament, loud, humorous, is almost palpable and adds even more to the unique atmosphere of this place.

Then, the little bus I have been waiting for pulls into the Plaza. It is full of the children MySmallHelp provides transport to school for, coming home after another day at the Arco Iris school for children with special needs. I get in and accompany them the last bit of their way; every then and so often, Ruben, our driver, stops to let one of them get off. I stay on the bus until there is only Lourdes left and we drive on to Rumira, the little village above Ollantaytambo she lives in.

Lourdes is a charming nineteen-year-old girl who is always immaculately groomed and dressed, with an infectious laugh and driving ambition to study and do her best in all she does. Every weekday, I join her on her way back from school and spend the afternoon studying with her. Right now, she is learning to read and write and solve basic mathematic problems. In all her life, she was never able to leave the house and therefore could not go to a school and get an education, because she is not able to move herself. After a chance encounter between her and Leander Hollings two years back, she now has a wheelchair and gets out a lot more, which you can already tell has made a huge positive change to her life.

Spending time with Lourdes and her family during my daily visits to their house is my main occupation here. Even though I have only worked for MSH for a week, I already feel responsible for this family and want to help them as much as I can. Circumstances are often difficult in this rural region; alcoholism is a problem in almost every family and child labour is not uncommon.  Most grown-ups cannot read and write properly themselves, so do not always think it necessary for their children to go to school. Lourdes´ family seems to have understood the necessity of their children to study, but all the same, there are a lot of problems remaining, such as her younger sister having to work and look after the household in her free time. The work I do there requests a lot of patience, as one cannot simply walk in on a group of people and change their lives as one would like to, but it is therefore even more rewarding when I see Lourdes advancing in her studies and her siblings opening up to me a bit more each time I visit them.

My other areas of work include helping out in our volunteer house, which looks directly onto the ruins of Ollantaytambo, and doing whatever there is to be done, for example look through donations and distribute them to families who need them or helping with making folders for each of the families we support.Life in our volunteer house has been a great experience. I come home every day to people I have recently met from all over the world, here to help in the project or only to stay for a few nights while visiting Ollantaytambo. There is always something to do and it is never boring. The whole project is very personal, so is volunteering here, I have a lot of responsibility and always feel appreciated for my contribution.

In the future, the next big project I am looking forward to is taking Lourdes to Cusco on the weekends to a different school to enable her finish primary school in less time.

Reflections from a school bus

Reflections from a school bus


This past week I have been fortunate to help out My Small Help with two projects. The one I want to talk about today is the school bus project. My Small Help provides a number of special needs kids the chance to go to school. They provide a bus to take these kids from their homes to the school. I was there to make sure we picked up every kid and that they arrived safely to school. 

This could mean opening the door, helping the kids get to their seats, cleaning spittle off a chin, making funny faces, talking in broken Spanish, and teaching them the grease lightening dance. But each of these kids has completely touched my heart. I admire what they do every single day. They get up. They try. It’s more than some people I see back home, and here there are more complications. 


For example, there is a 19 year old who spent most of her life ignored by her family and without being able to walk, had never seen more than her own house. But with a wheelchair now and a bus, she is able to go to school for the first time. In fact she’s almost done her first grade. But what really impresses me is just what her day must be like. To get herself ready for school must take her ages. And she always looks so well put together. Clean clothes, washed and dried hair with barrettes, and even a hint of makeup. 


But to be honest, I see the same thing with all the other kids to varying degrees and on each face a smile. With nothing more than eye contact and a Buenas Dias, you get a radiant smile from each kid. I have really enjoyed connecting to each kid. Dancing to the latin pop on the radio or from a cellphone, or cuddling with this one little girl who with her beautiful green eyes flirts between waking and dreaming. 


Each day I felt really grateful (even if only for a short period of time) to take these kids to school. Mostly because it was so rewarding to see these kids interact. Even with all the discrimination and difficulties, these kids still get together and act like every other kid. Smiling, laughing, running, playing, and joking. Watching four kids kick up some dust on the playground was as beautiful a sight as I can remember seeing.


And while my contribution to their lives was small, I feel like it was just so incredible to be a part of it. If you want more information you can check out www.mysmallhelp.org and help with your own small contribution to make a big difference.

Shree Mangaladevi School built in Dhrumthali, Sindupalchok, Nepal