Latin American Foundation for the Future's Blog

Since getting back to Peru in February time has really flown and I have been so busy working both with Azul Wasi as well as LAFF’s new project partners here, Casa Mantay and Sacred Valley Project, which the LAFF board approved earlier this year.

We have been doing really different things with each project as LAFF responds to our partners’ needs (which are often quite different!), so here is a run-down of what I’ve been up to with each of them:

One of Casa Mantay's beautiful bags from the new product line

Casa Mantay – Casa Mantay already has a very active and productive workshop onsite at their home for adolescent mothers and their children on the outskirts of Cuzco. Speaking to them however, we have helped them identify areas for improvement such as broadening their market around Peru and internationally and are helping them to implement their idea of creating a new, luxury product line which they can target at the local market, enabling them not to have to rely solely on tourism which only really peaks for 3 months of the year here in Cuzco and has seriously diminished over the last couple of years due to natural disasters, the global recession and more recently through strikes and political instability. I’ve been working with them to put together a business plan to really assess how their new line will work and ensure that it will be a success, helping to put together a catalogue for their products to promote more widely and LAFF also helped Casa Mantay to attend the Peru Gift Fair 2011 to promote their products to an audience of professional buyers from all over the world. Increasing Casa Mantay’s sales and range of products will have a really positive effect on the home; enabling them to cover more of the homes running costs through income generated and will eventually open up more jobs for former beneficiaries of the home.

Sacred Valley Project – SVP is a relatively new project so has totally different needs from Casa Mantay which has been running for over 10 years. With SVP we have been helping them to equip their study centre for the project which now enables 13 girls from rural villages around Ollantaytambo to attend schools which they wouldn’t otherwise have the opportunity to attend and may well instead be working the fields to support their families in their villages. We have also been investigating sustainability ideas with the project and SVP are keen to start up a small guinea pig farm which will enable the girls to have some responsibility and learn skills which are very valuable in their communities along with generating income to contribute towards the costs of running costs and tutors for the project through selling guinea pigs to local restaurants. Ollantaytambo is where most tourists catch the train to Machu Picchu so is a great place for this with lots of busy restaurants.

First harvest from Azul Wasi's greenhouse

Azul Wasi – at Azul Wasi we have continued to help them build capacity and confidence in using their greenhouse to produce their own vegetables. Earlier this year, we refurbished the greenhouse by replacing the plastic which was quite worn and by installing a new drip irrigation system. We were impressed by their success in their use of the greenhouse up with assistance from Wilfredo, LAFF’s greenhouse trainer and expert. We have continued with training and aim to leave the greenhouse project in Azul Wasi’s hands by the end of August. Along with this, we have continued to work with the home’s director, Alcides, in order to build capacity in financial management and long-term planning.

Aside from working with LAFF’s partner projects another highlight for me is that we have been busy compiling the Annual Report which will be out soon – it’s so exciting to be reminded of all we’ve achieved over the last year and how far we’ve come as an organisation. I have also been looking at new potential partners in Peru’s two largest cities, Lima and Arequipa, which we are reviewing at the moment.

This blog was originally published on 18th May 2011 on  La Vida Idealist where Fran Talavera, LAFF’s International Projects Manager, is one of the contributors.

This week I have spent a lot of time with one of LAFF’s partner projects, Casa Mantay. Getting to know the girls, their children and the project better has just impressed me even more with what the girls deal with and how well Casa Mantay supports them.

Cuidate y Cuidame campaign

Casa Mantay is a home for adolescent mothers from the age of 12, who have mainly been victims of sexual abuse. Casa Mantay provides them with a home, access to education, psychological support, professional training and childcare support. This enables the mothers to keep their babies while also achieving their goals and managing to lead a life they can be proud of even though they have suffered abuse and are bringing up children at a young age.

While I was at Casa Mantay the director explained the laws surrounding this issue in Peru to me which to me, as a Brit, were truly shocking. For example:

Up until 1999 rape was not considered a serious crime, just a minor ‘fault.’

Until recently rape was only considered to be a crime and not ‘seduction’ for victims under 14 years of age.

Now the age has risen to 18 for the charge of raping a minor, though if you are under 14 physical violence must be proved for it to go to court.

Casa Mantay has received 101 girls and only a couple of cases they have presented have ever been successful.

Spending time with the girls at Casa Mantay was very inspiring. I truly admire them for overcoming their difficulties and also Casa Mantay for providing them with the support they need to go out and become successful, strong, independent women.

Today is the first ever International Day for Street Children and LAFF is joining the Consortium for Street Children in celebrating the day to give a voice to the millions of children worldwide who are invisible, ignored and do not have a voice. This is an exciting year for this important cause as, additionally, last month the UN Human Rights Council met with other key players to discuss the rights of street children globally and how to tackle this burning issue. Rights for children in general are highlighted in the human rights agenda, but street children are swept under the carpet – an issue that no government seems to want to own up to, or deal with.

Having the day being celebrated internationally brought me to think about why this is the issue that I have chosen to work on and why LAFF has chosen to focus on this issue in their work.

Why me?

Fran with street workers at Colibri, police-run refuge centre, Cuzco

I am a bit of an idealist and, for me, it simply is not fair that the world is not a more equal place – how can there be such riches and such poverty and, more importantly, how can 10% of the world’s population own 85% of the world’s riches, and how can 50% of the world’s population only have access to 1%?! For me this is absurd. Poverty is a huge contributing factor to the issue of street children – parents can’t afford to feed their children or send them to school; children run away to give their brothers and sisters a better chance in life; children are the main breadwinners in their families who can’t afford not to make them work; children are abused at home as parents turn to alcohol to dull their disappointment in life… These are just some of the causes that lead to children living and working on the streets. I worked for a year as a volunteer with a police-run centre for niños trabajadores de la calle (child street workers) and during that time I could see these issues very clearly – this is what spurred me on to want to try and make a difference for these children who have to become adults all too soon and why I am so proud to work for Latin American Foundation for the Future (LAFF) – a charity that holds the same values as me.

Why LAFF?

LAFF was set up by Sarah Oakes, who I met while volunteering in Peru six years ago. She worked on community development projects and also felt this sense of injustice so decided to do something about it. When she returned to the UK she set up LAFF to tackle needs expressed through talking to many children and children’s homes. As a small charity, LAFF can’t do everything so decided to focus on two key areas:
- Helping children’s homes to become self-sustaining through generating income, lowering costs and capacity building, so as not to need to depend on external support which can be fickle and unreliable
- To help provide vocational support for children in care to enable them to access dignified employment once they leave the homes, trying to break the stigma associated with former street children

In 2006 UNICEF published a report on ‘The State of the World’s Children’ which stated that there were over 100 million street children worldwide – 40% of those children live in Latin America which is a significant proportion of the world’s street children.

The International Day for Street Children provides an exciting opportunity for LAFF to promote our work as for the last two months we have been working on Schools Resources in order to try and get this issue into the classroom in a fun and inspiring way for children in the UK – if you are a teacher and would be interested in using this material to raise awareness about this important cause please get in touch by emailing LAFF! Equally, although this year International Day for Street Children falls in the Easter holidays, why not hold a day to celebrate once schools starts again so as not to forget the plight of such children?

LAFF hopes to celebrate the day more prominently next year when we are more established, but in the meantime, in order to celebrate the day here in Peru I’m off to visit a couple of potential partner projects in Peru’s second biggest city, Arequipa.

Find out more by reading informative articles from The Daily Telegraph and The Guardian.

On 11th January I went back to the UK for five weeks which was quite a change. It was great to see friends, family and my husband who I had not seen since I left for Peru in September. I had thrown myself into my work in Latin America so much that even just having one week off when I got back to the UK felt like such a luxury and was really relaxing, even though I was actually studying for an exam!

Otherwise, while I was back, I was still working for LAFF and it was a pretty busy month! We held a Burns Night Ceilidh in honour of our much-cherished fellow trustee, Hannah Barrett, who tragically passed away at just 26 years of age following a battle against cancer – this was an event that she had started to organise before she lost this fight. The night was a great success, though of course tinged with sadness, but was a great tribute and we managed to raise £2,839 for LAFF to use to help children and vulnerable people in Latin America. I had lots of meetings with other supporters of Azul Wasi which LAFF helps to co-ordinate to enable Alcides, who is very pushed for time on top of his job as a full-time policeman, to run the home efficiently and look to its sustainable future. I gave a lot of presentations to over 700 potential supporters including schools, churches and Rotary groups which was exciting and it was really interesting and inspiring to get back to why we do what we do and look at it from different angles, such as careers talks to Sixth Form students and sessions on malnutrition to children in year 9. One brilliant resource that I used was a video which was put together for the Ceilidh, and serves as a great, short, sharp introduction to LAFF’s work, view it here:

My time in the UK was also a good test to leave the systems that I had started to help Azul Wasi work on in place for them to use without my on-hand support and this was very encouraging. Particularly in regard to accounting we have made so much progress since September.  Meeting the LAFF trustees to decide on which new projects to work with was also very exciting and we now have two new project partners: Casa Mantay and Sacred Valley Project which I have mentioned in previous posts.

Another highlight of my trip back was when I was invited to attend an international parliamentary visit from a group of Costa Rican MPs –it was really interesting to speak to them and compare some experiences I had working in Peru to how things work in Costa Rica, which is renowned as one of the most successful and stable countries in Latin America. It is especially interesting now to reflect on my discussions with them as the Peruvian presidential elections take place here in Peru.

Firstly, huge apologies for not having written for such a long time – I can’t believe two months have passed so quickly! So, back to where I left off… Three months into my role as International Projects Manager for LAFF and I seem to have reached that time when work becomes so manic that there seems to be no time for anything that isn’t either urgent or vital (flashbacks of my old boss explaining the theories of importance vs. urgency and how to prioritise…). I’m now in the UK for a month and as I sit on a train writing this, I reflect that a contributing factor to this ‘lack of time’ is that working in Peru is much less efficient than working in the UK. This is not only due to Peruvian time-keeping (as I may have already mentioned…) but also because it is less safe than the UK so when I go out, I try to take as little with me as possible to avoid being mugged or getting seen as a ‘rich gringo’ so I can’t work on the move as I can here. Another reason for this inefficiency is that my internet is painfully slow (although ironically I do wish that I had my dongle with me on this train journey now!) which means that it takes me longer to do things than it would in the UK. Of course, I accept these differences and work within my means, but an issue I find with this is that as I’m working for a British NGO, I feel that I should be keeping up with the pace of work that I would be in the UK so I end up working extra to try and make up for that!

View over La Paz, Bolivia

In mid-December I went to Bolivia for a week on a sort of recon mission to look at potential projects for LAFF to support there. It was a great trip – very inspiring and also a well-needed bit of time out of Cusco, which can get a bit claustrophobic after a while!

As I didn’t know many people in La Paz, I decided to stay in a hostel so that I could meet people there – this worked really well and I met a lot of interesting people there doing a variety of things. There was one funny moment when I was talking to a guy from Australia who, when I told him I was working while I was in La Paz (and not travelling), could not understand why I hadn’t put myself up in a luxury hotel… Well, my friend, I work for a charity and not only do I not want to waste their resources but also this hostel actually happens to be better positioned and way friendlier than any of the posh hotels in La Paz!

Visiting projects for LAFF to consider supporting in Bolivia was a brilliant experience. It is an area that LAFF is very keen to expand to and, in my opinion, it would be silly not to: Bolivia is the poorest country in South America. In fact, poverty there is very much more visible than in Peru – this is actually the biggest ‘culture shock’ that I have faced over the last few months. Instead of it being from coming all the way from the UK to Peru it was crossing the border from Peru to Bolivia. There are clearly projects and people that could benefit from LAFF’s support and input there, so I am planning to return to Bolivia later in the year for a month or two to enable LAFF to work there as well.

I saw a variety of projects in La Paz and also linked up with various volunteering organisations to ask their advice on projects in the area that could do with LAFF’s support. I had a very busy week seeing:

Me modelling shawls at Fundacion Machaqa Amaw'ta

• Microloan schemes for vendedoras ambulantes – women street vendors who don’t even have enough money to have a stall, they sell things by walking around the streets and this leads to serious health problems for them, not to mention that it is also dangerous and they earn very little. Fundación Machaqa Amaw’ta helps them to access better paid and more dignified employment by loaning co-operatives of these women money, training and education to make products such as shawls, chocolates and woven products – for this they get a fair price for the goods they make, gain basic literacy skills (many of them didn’t even finish primary school), and nutritional and healthcare advice. This, in turn, enables them to give their own children better opportunities and combats things such as malnutrition and them dropping out of education.

• I saw projects working with street children as well, though it appears that the trend in Bolivia is to work with them through training their parents to enable them to provide their children with better opportunities and a better quality of life. Fundación La Paz showed me a training centre for parents of children in high risk situations where they could learn how to sew clothes and then were able to take these skills to set up their own microenterprises.

The Arco Iris Bakery

• Arco Iris was a very impressive set-up which provides support to street children through various initiatives which appeared to me to be well thought-through and excellent projects. I saw their homes for girls and boys previously on the streets and their vocational training centres there where I could smell delicious panetón and stöllen being baked for Christmas. They also train these children in making clothes and woodwork – they can either carry on working there as their job or pursue other avenues with support from Arco Iris. Another thing that impressed me about Arco Iris’ work was the after-care element of it. While I was there I was invited along to their annual Christmas Dinner for ex-beneficiaries of their homes – it was so interesting to chat to them and they clearly valued the opportunity to take time out of their busy lives to meet up with their ‘brothers and sisters’ again. Arco Iris not only supports them through further education, but also provides them with a sort of ‘starter pack’ when they move out, providing things like furniture and equipment for their first flat.

• I also saw Arco Iris Hospital while I was in La Paz – another arm of Arco Iris’ work. The hospital is massive and has gained a reputation as the best hospital in La Paz. Impressively it is totally self-sustainable yet manages to provide free healthcare to over 40,000 poor people a year. There is no NHS in either Peru or Bolivia so free healthcare is a luxury – most people who can’t afford it simply have to go without or make huge sacrifices to pay for healthcare. The hospital is able to provide this and still be sustainable due to its reputation and different pricing bands for healthcare – there are free levels: free, cost-price and private enabling people to pay the level they can afford. They are also the only service to go out to the community to provide healthcare in mobile clinics – one barrier to healthcare, aside from the cost, is that in some areas people live very far from their nearest health clinic so Arco Iris bridges that gap by going to them.

I met with a couple of other organisations as well, but wasn’t able to visit the projects themselves so that is something for my next trip to Bolivia. Ironically, despite the similarities between Peru and Bolivia, very simple things are different – for example, I wasn’t able to see these projects as the children had already broken up from school for Christmas, while in Peru they break up very late on 23rd December so it hadn’t even occurred to me to ask about this! Its funny how there can be more culture shocks crossing just one border rather than flying over the whole of the Atlantic!

A couple of parasites, an exciting visit, lots of hard work later and I can’t believe that I wrote my last blog a month ago – time seems to have flown by! I have been lucky enough to have some company in the form of Matthew Oldfield, a photographer sent by the Vodafone Foundation to shadow me for a week – sounds very glamorous! To be honest it was great having someone to show round the work I’ve been doing and the potential projects I’ve been getting to know over the past couple of months. So I gave Matt a whistle-stop tour of my work here! We were absolutely shattered by the end of each day; I think you’ll see why:

Monday – went to visit Casa Mantay and participated in a workshop about self-confidence and teambuilding for the girls there which involved everyone (including me and Matt) being passed over all of the girls which was quite scary but also quite fun! Then they had a discussion about what the girls liked most about themselves and about the group at Casa Mantay. This was led by a group of Spanish volunteers which I have a lot of admiration for – they are so welcoming and full of energy. I’ve got a lot out of their sessions and I’m sure the girls have too. We then went and met all the cute toddlers in the nursery there and finally to meet the girls that work in the workshop making products which contribute to Casa Mantay’s sustainability. In the afternoon we went to see the place that I volunteered in for a year from 2005-6, a police-run refuge for children working on the streets of Cusco. There weren’t many kids that I recognised there but it was great to see Carmen and Patty who I had worked with a lot and had a lovely chat with them and their mum who still sells her woven and knitted goods in Calle Resbalosa. It was especially heartwarming to chat to Patty who has now left school and is applying to study tourism at university!

Casa Mantay girls dancing on stilts!

Tuesday – We dropped by Casa Mantay in the morning to do them a favour and take some photos of their goods so that they might be able to sell them online, or at least promote them more. On our way up the hill though we saw some dancing going on in a park – it turned out to be the girls from Casa Mantay dancing on stilts! Pretty cool and unexpected! Turns out they’re practising to take part in a parade organised by an NGO that promotes self-worth and confidence in December. Then we picked up some fruit at San Jerónimo market (5 mangos for 20p!) and headed down to Azul Wasi. I wanted Matt to see a typical day, so we arrived to have lunch with the boys – which involved Iván patiently teaching me some Quechua (and me instantly forgetting it…) and one of the cats snatching Neptalí’s meat out of his hand, so I gave him mine. Then the boys got down to homework which was fun to help them with and spend some time with them.

Wednesday – we met Neptalí and Oscár at 7am to go over to Urubamba to visit the Azul Wasi guinea pigs at the farm they’ve been moved to. A bit of a mix-up about where to meet, but the boys turned up in the end – only after the thought had crossed my mind that maybe I had facilitated their escape by giving them money for their bus fares… scary! So, we got to Urubamba by minibus, then hopped onto a couple of mototaxis to an old bus which eventually crawled up the hill to Washi’s house. We hadn’t been able to make contact with Washi before going so we really did have our fingers crossed and luckily he was there when we arrived – phew! So, Washi (a former Azul Wasi boy who has been relocated with his family) showed us round the rabbits and guinea pigs (confusingly both called ‘cuyes’ in Peru) and the rest of the animals at his house and even gave the other boys a bit of a lesson on guinea pig care. Oscár seemed interested; Neptalí was too busy posing… After taking the boys for lunch and dropping them off to get the bus back to Cusco, we pressed on to Ollantaytambo where we had some lunch at Hearts Café (which supports Living Heart‘s work) before going to meet Bianca and the girls at Sacred Valley Project. When we got there we found it was capulí season and the girls were itching to go and pick some of the berries. So we all went on a nature walk through the corn fields of Ollantaytambo – strikingly beautiful as it is surrounded by huge mountains and Inca ruins. The girls were up the tree to pick the berries incredibly fast and only came down once their bags/stomachs were full! Then as we walked through they showed me which herbs were which and what ailments they healed – really enlightening! The girls at SVP all come from remote villages around Ollantaytambo and most have to travel at least 4 hours to go home to see their families each weekend. We then all reluctantly went back to the home to help the girls out with their homework and then played a fun game of Maths Bingo – lots of fun but very testing for my rusty mental arithmetic… Needless to say I didn’t win any chocolate!

Thursday – unfortunately our plans fell through this day, one of the challenges of working in Peru – if you organise something too far in advance then you tend to get stood up! A fine balancing act… Anyway it enabled us to both have a well-earned rest, a chance to catch up with emails and to prepare for the next few days.

Wilfredo and Hernan putting the drip irrigation system together

Friday – we went to meet Wilfredo, the greenhouse trainer and advisor I found for Azul Wasi, at 8am to buy the materials to replenish the soil and set up a new drip irrigation system at Azul Wasi, though of course the shop owner was late so we spent about 20 minutes waiting outside! Then there was more waiting around while they mixed the soil and compost together so we went to a local market for a juice – Matt and I couldn’t quite stomach the ‘main course’ Peruvian breakfast that Wilfredo and Jorge (his assistant) ate! Then we were off to Azul Wasi, stopping by another shop for the irrigation equipment en route. I got out at Oropesa as I had to meet Josefina, the breadmaking tutor, to plan and discuss the class the following day and once I got to Azul Wasi, Wilfredo, Jorge and some of the boys had already got well on the way to sorting out the greenhouse! We then did a lot of digging to replenish the soil with fertilizer and set to on the irrigation system which was fun and got all the boys joining in cutting piping and putting the system together. After lunch we then started to plant seeds which the younger boys especially enjoyed. It has been great to go back 2 weeks on and see results already!

Oscar showing us his bread rolls!

Saturday – we met Dante, Wilmer and Edwin early to go to the market to finish off buying things to decorate the new study/relaxing space that we’ve been working on with some funds generously donated by a member of the congregation of St Andrew’s Church in Cambridge, a longstanding supporter of Azul Wasi. It was an interesting experience going shopping with the boys as it was quite hard to get them to spend any money – perhaps as they are not accustomed to it… After a lot of wandering around they decided to buy some food for their budgies, some 3D posters, a couple of balls and some board games. We then went on an epic search for posters of footballers (one of their biggest requests) which are surprisingly hard to find in Cusco! But finally we did and then we all headed back to Azul Wasi for the breadmaking class. The class went really well, once all the boys joined in (a bit of a challenge) and they all enjoyed kneading then bread and making the rolls. It was delicious when it came out of the oven and provided them with bread for almost the whole week.

Sunday – we went to San Jerónimo market to meet Anastasia (the Azul Wasi cook) and a couple of the boys to help with their weekly shop. Something I have been working hard on with Azul Wasi is better financial control and accountability so it was good to see them using the system that I had helped them implement – even if Bautista was very shy and reluctant to get signatures for the products. It was a proud moment later on in the trip when he was getting them without me needing to constantly prod him!

I hope that gives you a taste of a typical week for me here. I’m really looking forward to seeing Matt’s photos and I’ll let you know where to view them when I can!