RE-POST

Summer 2012

This summer, 19 people from all over North America left home for Cuzco, Peru. The purpose of the trip: to give the opportunity of education to young Peruvian children. We wanted to make a difference in their lives by doing more than simply sending money to a place we may never go. In Peru, we worked with a program called Peru’s Challenge.

Peru’s Challenge was started almost 10 years ago by Jane Gavel and Selvy Ugaz in the Picol community. When they first started at the school, there was one drunk teacher and 12 kids. When Peru’s Challenge left after two and a half years, there were six teachers, 170 kids and a completed school including six classrooms.

On our trip, the main focus was building a classroom for an already existing school. The classroom was made of mud bricks with mud mortar to hold them together, and a roof made of logs and corrugated metal. The project took about five days to complete. Over the course of the project, groups of between three and seven would visit the children in the school. These groups would teach subjects such as English, sports, or music to the Peruvian children.

The sports group was thrilled to have and additional seven fair trade soccer balls that they could bring to the kids in the school. All seven of VOLO Athletics’s Fair Trade Soccer Balls that I took with me stayed in Cuzco. Four stayed with the school I was with, and the other three will go to another school in the area.

Thank you to VOLO Athletics for helping to spread the beautiful game.

Conrad
Bowen Island, BC