LaSER trip to Peru 2007

About Project Peru

The aim of our project was to carry out an international trip to Peru in August 2007 to work with a registered Peruvian charity called Kiya Survivors (www.kiyasurvivors.org).

In Peru, Kiya Survivors runs a school called The Rainbow Centre, which offers basic education and training to disabled, abandoned and abused children.

This international opportunity offered us a chance to develop our skills in a very real way. For example, during our pre-trip weekends we organised training sessions in areas as diverse as fundraising, teamwork, effective communication and leadership skills, culture shock, safe travel in developing countries and working with special needs children. We also fundraised over £46,000 between us to cover the costs of our project, which included a sizeable donation to Kiya Survivors. So we felt more than ready to embark on our adventure when August finally rolled around.

Deepest Darkest Peru.

We started our trip with a fantastic 3 days in Lima, where we did some sightseeing, recovered from our jetlag and generally acclimatised ourselves. We spent one evening dancing and singing around a crackling campfire with some local Guides. This was a real highlight for many of us, and we left with lots of Peruvian Guide badges, neckers, songs and games.

The President of the Guide Association of Peru also held an official reception for us at her home. The evening started with a rumble when Peru’s most severe earthquake in nearly 30 years hit just south of the capital. We were in excellent hands however as our hosts went to great lengths to reassure us and make us feel safe.

We made contact with our Home Contacts almost immediately to let them know all was well. We were almost embarrassed to admit that we’d barely felt anything! We spent the rest of the evening enjoying typical food and delicacies and learning about the ambitious and wide-reaching education initiative currently being run by the Association to encourage safe and informed sex decisions by girls and young women in a range of schools, health centres and homes in Peru. It was fantastic to learn about the role of Guiding within the international community in this way. This also made us think hard about the role of Guiding in our own communities, and how we might be able to make a difference in areas that mattered to our own peers.

The Rainbow Centre

After our adventures in Lima, we moved on to The Rainbow Centre in Urubamba, a little town in the Andes just outside the Inca city of Cusco. Over the next ten days or so, we worked hard to help construct part of the perimeter wall around the centre. We also decorated two classrooms, which involved sanding down and painting the mud walls, and then decorating the room with murals. This work was quite physically demanding, but our co-ordinator at Kiya made sure we never had to do more than we felt we were capable of.

There were many opportunities to meet up with the children during the day, and some of the girls formed close bonds with the children despite the fact that they came from cultures and backgrounds very different to their own. We prepared our packed lunches ourselves in the mornings, and in the evenings, we would eat delicious meals at local restaurants. This was arranged by our co-ordinator, an English girl called Alex, who had experience of organising British school groups in Urubamba and made sure that each place prepared our food to the highest hygiene standards.

Throughout our trip, we also took great care to always use sterilised or bottled water – we all agreed one of the things we missed most was the ability to brush our teeth with tap water, and we almost forgot what it was like not to sterilise our hands every few minutes! Our final few days involved some well-earned rest and relaxation, and we also did some more sightseeing.

In addition to all the work we did in Peru, it is very satisfying to think about the wider implications of our project, and the thank you cards and messages us leaders have received from many of the girls and their parents since our return have helped us appreciate this. The girls have gained a huge sense of independence and enormous confidence in their abilities to deal with challenges head on. Many of the girls are clearly more aware of the value of being involved in the community, either through Guiding or in other ways. We know of at least one girl who was going to leave Guides after the trip, but who has now decided to stay on and look for further opportunities to make a difference. Some of our group are also talking about continuing their support of the Rainbow Centre by returning to work there during their gap years, or by continuing to raise awareness and possibly fundraise among friends and family now they are home.

We set out to offer these girls a unique international opportunity and an experience of a lifetime, and there is no doubt in my mind that we offered them that. All in all, we faced our fair share of challenges, but like everything else, we knew we could pull through once we stuck together. What the girls made of these experiences was ultimately up to them, and I’m proud to say that they rose to the challenge and made this experience so much more amazing than any of us could have hoped for. Our final day in Lima really brought this home, when we spoke about the highlights and what we’d do differently next time (e.g. spend more time at the Rainbow Centre).

We all left Lima a little older and a little wiser, sad to be leaving behind so many new friends but appreciative of the amazing experiences we had shared and the lasting friendships we had forged within the group as a result.

Sarah Dillon

October 2007