Yearly Archives: 2017


Jungle Animals

I was in the Peruvian Amazon recently to attend the final “achievement days” with the students, teachers, parents, and community members of our projects along the Ucayali River. It was the beginning of the rainy season and the river was already rising quickly, but was still not high enough to get into the community of […]


Filomena blog

We have been working in Tucsa for four years. Filomena started attending our project three years ago, although she was still in pre-school, and she has always made her presence felt. All of our teachers remember Filomena because she is the student who will not sit down; who cannot stay on task; who, now that […]


Maria Elena story

Maria Elena graduated from high school last year and was an outstanding student in one of our pre-university academies. She is the youngest of three children and studied in an alternative-schedule school, where she spent two weeks in school and two weeks at home, and therefore could have access to secondary education although she lived […]


Sexual Violence in rural Peru and Bolivia

Ever since I have been coming down here I have heard stories of sexual violence in communities. I had a shocking experience very early on with Alma. We were supporting an outreach program with a facility for children with special needs. I went out for a day on family visits with the social worker and […]


Nuevo Amanecer

We slept in Trini last night which gave us the chance to buy Saltenas for the drive. Saltenas are an empanada type pastry filled with meat, potatoes, egg and lots of juice/gravy. Bolivians eat them for breakfast, you can only buy them before 11AM. The first time I had one I was warned; they are […]


Las Palmeras

The road to Las Palmeras is almost always wet and often impassable. This year we got lucky, it was dry and we arrived late in the evening, had a sandwich and fell asleep in our tents. I was awakened by men yelling “aqua aqua”! Their well had gone dry and they had been drilling around […]


Alan’s Road Trip

We set out from Trini at 3 AM in a pickup truck owned by the Municipality. Our group for this road trip is our project manager Kathe, our program director Ian, and two staff people from the Municipality – Raquel and the driver “El Chino”. One of the reasons we have had success here is […]


Meet Elizabeth from San Martin

The hot, dusty community of San Martin feels empty and forgotten and a million miles away from anything (in fact it is only a four-hour drive from Trini but somehow feels even more remote than our other communities). When we arrived we saw no one. I managed to get sick last night so I am […]


Day 3 – Cotoca and Manguita

I had thought that sleeping in the jungle would be restful. I was wrong. It’s noisy. We slept on the floor of the school room in Manguita and between the insect noises, the roosters crowing (funny, I didn’t notice them during the day but heard them all night), the pigs and horses rooting around outside […]


Sleepless in Bolivia

It’s day one in Bolivia and already I feel like I’m in one of those Garcia Marguez novels where time stops and sleep doesn’t necessarily happen. My one and only day in Lima started at 1AM when I arrived but my taxi driver didn’t (he had fallen asleep in his car at the airport parking […]


New Lacco Computer Project

As technology becomes ever more integral in all levels of education and in every aspect of daily life, children without access to technological education are increasingly disadvantaged. When added to the many economic and social obstacles already present for children from rural indigenous communities in Peru, the lack of access to technology is detrimental to […]


New Cotoca Computer Project

In 2016, we ran a very successful primary school academic reinforcement project in the small community of Cotoca. Cotoca is in the San Andres district of Beni, Bolivia. This year, we are building on that success by implementing our computer program in the secondary school. We want to develop the student’s computer skills and reinforce reading […]