About Us
Our mission is to help the children of Peru keep their smiles.
Our boarding houses bridge the gap between home and school for children living in Ccorca; a handful of Quechua communities nestled high in the Andes of Southern Peru.
The Gap?
We are essentially working to combat two problems:
1. The physical gap - a 4-hour walk between home and school
2. The educational gap - an irrelevant curriculum that alienates indigenous children
The Physical Gap
At the age of seven, children in Ccorca begin walking up to eight hours daily to get to school and back. They arrive too tired to concentrate and frequently fall asleep in class. Others abandon their education altogether. This leaves them vulnerable and ill-prepared for a challenging life growing up as a Quechua speaking person in modern Peru.
Our boarding houses take away this barrier and now these children can use their energy to unlock their full potential, helping them to take advantage of the modernisation of their district, rather than fall victim to it.
The Educational Gap
There is a huge difference between these children’s lives at home and the westernized world they are taught about in school.
Images of middle class families in urban settings and abstract lessons like those on the periodic table mean very little to these children, whose parents are subsistence farmers. Even the language in which they are taught is foreign to them!
We offer a relevant education, which means that children don’t lose touch with their communities, their families and ultimately themselves.
