Three times a year our students present what they’ve been up to in our projects to their parents during the school’s “Achievement Day”. The first round of Achievement Days passed recently and in Tuksa, it went as great as we hoped! Students in Tuksa engaged their parents with their presentations and live demonstrations of activities […]
Ok, maybe this is not the 6 ‘ ft tall basketball player you know but, really, his name is Michael Jordan – and he is the FIRST Manos Unidas student working in a Cusco hotel. When you arrive at Ninos Hotel, you will be greeted by Michael. He will open the door, help you carry in your luggage and lead […]
Thank you to all of our generous supporters who have helped us increase our impact in Latin America! We are thrilled to share with you three new education projects in the San Andres district of Bolivia: San Martin de Porres Cotoca and La Maguita Monte Cristo In San Martin de Porres we are implementing a […]
We spend a lot of time in rural communities in order to get to know the people, their needs, and the realities of the area before starting a new project there. Over the past ten days I was in the Peruvian Amazon to do just that. One community I visited on my trip was […]
We are thrilled to announce that we will be partnering with El Arca Children’s Home. El Arca not only gives 25 children a second chance in life but also provides them with a high quality education. El Arca’s new location is near Puerto Maldonado, in the Peruvian Amazon jungle. It is home to children aged 2 years old […]
Thank you to all of our supporters, sponsors and volunteers who made our Alma Annual Party a huge success! With over 300 tickets sold, Alma was able to raise over $40,000 for our education projects in Peru and Bolivia! The party consisted of delicious Peruvian Cuisine, amazing salsa lessons by Loudes and music by the award-winning DJ […]
Full disclosure: I’ve never watched a complete episode of “Dragon’s Den”. That said, I had always heard wonderful things about Arlene Dickinson and when I met her a couple of years ago all those second hand comments were confirmed. She’s a really nice, smart and generous person. Offering her self up to do a fundraising […]
I always say that one of the most important aspects of Alma is how involved we are in the communities we work in. It is a prerequisite that parents are included in our projects, and in order to ensure a lasting relationship, we get involved in some community affairs as well. When visiting our Biblioteca […]
While visiting the Tucsa Biblioteca Project last week, I had the great surprise of running into one of our ex-students, Guido! Guido was one of our most active and enthusiastic students in Tucsa during the last two years of the project. He is now in secondary school and rides his bike 3 hours a day […]
Annie Villaran is a volunteer project manager, Board member and an amazing ambassador for Alma. She dedicates her expertise, time and passion to helping Alma’s education projects succeed. Annie recently went to visit Alma’s projects in Iquitos, Peru. She brought back many lessons and stories from her travel. Watch Annie share one of her incredible stories from the […]
Weather plays a big role in the lives of agricultural people. Considering that the families we work with in Cusco are almost all small potato farmers, it is therefore no wonder that the weather plays a big role in our projects as well. Sometimes it feels as if we are always looking to the sky […]
After 3 hours of driving through the mountains, we arrived at Huadhua, a remote town with 200 residents. As our white pick-up approached the school the children began to scream with excitement. “Gringo, Gringo!” rings through the air as the children eye us with bewilderment and curiosity. The kids, who are timid at first, […]
We headed out for Huadhua in the morning, aiming to cover 4000 feet of elevation gain in time for lunch at school with the kids. I had no idea how rich with sights – and learning from Ian – our trip would be. As we passed through the towns outside of Cusco, Ian told us […]
What is your favourite food? Lomo saltado. (Beef with rice, tomatoes and onions) Tell us about your family. I have 9 siblings, and I am the oldest. What do you want to do when you are older? I want to drive a car. I want to have passengers and go fast. [Balthazar was later on very […]
Philip von Hahn is a recent graduate of Williams College in the US, where he rowed crew and majored in medieval history, winning an award for his thesis on ninth century royal biographies. It turns out they are rather complicated. A Toronto native, he attended high school at Upper Canada College, spending summers canoe-tripping and […]
Benjamin is a recent grad from the Ivey Business School at Western University. After spending his final semester of study in Barcelona, Benjamin realized his passion for travel, especially in expanding his perspective by meeting and learning from new people. In his spare time Benjamin enjoys cooking, scuba-diving, playing basketball, and reading. His recent reads […]
Our next stop was Kenko, a small village where Alma had set up a collectivo – school bus – to take the children to school in order to increase attendance. Unfortunately, this goal was not met, and we were there to figure out why the project didn’t work out. As we drove through the town […]
Today Phil, Octavio and I headed towards the Valle Sagrado to visit three villages where Alma has operated for the last few years. The projects have all finished this year, so our goal was to evaluate the effectiveness of the projects and meet with the children who participated. Our first stop was Patabamba, a relatively […]
Leer más: Project Update Academia Huaninpampa – March 2016
Leer más: Project Update Academia Colcha – March 2016