Peru Update: 2015 Report

/ LED

September saw the LED Trustees autumn meeting, and Val provided her report on this year’s activities in the Cordillera Blanca:

In 2015, LED provided:

  • 200 homes with solar lights in the villages of Ingenio, Pisco, Pampiti in the NE Blanca. We last visited / distributed solar lights in Ingenio 10 years ago (a couple of the lights were still going strong!).  We concentrated on providing lights to older people and women with children.
  • school supplies for Ingenio, Quishuar, Jancapampa – books, pens, dictionaries, laminated posters, sports kit (including footballs, hula hoops and 60 football strips); enough to last for the year.
  • 3 new greenhouses and a compost bin, courtesy of Anthony and Sheila’s hard work, all producing fresh veg for the schools and some of the elderly and women in Quishuar.
  • a technical plan, drawn up by Anthony, to use in obtaining approval for the two new classrooms built last year in Carhuacacha.
  • water pipeline and supply repairs in Quishuar.
  • staffing and supplies at the Health Post in Quishuar:
    • Retired GP Sarah Watson (together with Anthony Watson and Sheila Larking) spent 3 weeks volunteering her skills and expertise, as did Leeds medics Paul, Alex, Josh and Hugo, for 5 weeks. Picking up on work done by Dr Anne Ince and Leeds medics Jessica, Emma & Ellen in 2014, our medical volunteers ran daily clinics in the health post and made lots of house visits to remote homes where people too old or ill to travel to the health post. Sarah did a height/weight check on all the children of Quishuar to check growth and nutrition.
    • Since April, funded by LED and Paul de Shazo, we’ve employed a Peruvian  nurse at the health post. A trained nurse, Tula speaks both Quechua and Spanish, and carries out consultations at the health post year round. She undertook further training with Sarah and the Leeds medics during their time in Quishuar.
  • sexual health classes for both adults and secondary school kids; English classes for primary and secondary kids.

A few Thank Yous

We couldn’t have achieved all this year’s solar light distribution without the generosity of Mia, Brian, Donna and Jim from Canada, who donated and helped to distribute 60 solar lights to remote homes in the Cordillera Blanca of Peru.

Sarah and Paul, Alex, Josh and Hugo also provided very generous donations of medical equipment and medicines. This really helped our budget as the overall cost of medicines for the year to date has been c. $7000.

Paul de Shazo’s continued support enables us to run and staff the Health Post year round.

Thank you to Sarah, Anthony and Sheila, Paul, Alex, Josh and Hugo, for all they did in the Cordillera Blanca during their time there. If you’ve not already seen their reports, you can read them here:

There are loads of photos on our Facebook page, but here are some highlights:

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Looking ahead

Our plans for next year? More of the same!

If you are interested in volunteering – in any capacity – please do get in touch.