In many areas of the Cordillera Blanca and Cordillera Huayhuash there are families and children living in poor conditions, with very basic housing, no medical care, many hours walk from the closest school or village, inadequate diet, and no available cash to buy clothes, school books and pens.

Peruvian Andes Adventures operates a modest scheme to aid some of the poorer communities in the Cordillera Blanca and Cordillera Huayhuash.

Each year Peruvian Andes Adventures will donate a percentage of trek profits towards the fund, and also donations of either money or clothes from clients are very welcome.

Funds are used to purchase warm clothes for children in the poorest communities and to supply notebooks, pens and pencils for the schools or another project that will benefit the community. Many  families do not have the cash to buy new, warm clothes or school supplies for their children or communities do not have the resources to make small basic improvements to infrastructure such as to maintain schools, build toilets, rubbish disposal facilities etc.  

At the termination of the trekking season each year, we select a community to visit and distribute clothes and school supplies to the children or work on some other project that will benefit the community.
Funds donated by Peruvian Andes Adventures and donations received from clients are accounted for in a separate fund and records are available for inspection, and we will have photos from our visits to the local communities each year 

Peruvian Andes Adventures has contributed to communities from trekking profits:
2009 US$1000
2008 US$1000
2007 US$800
2006 US$360

Client Donations:
In 2006 the fund was started with a very generous donation of US$240 from Peter and Mariane Tanner from Switzerland and we have received further generous donations from:
*Kate Mansell from the USA (cash donation)
*Steve Palman from the USA (cash donation)
*Heather & Matt from Canada (Fleeces & clothes, sent from Canada two times)
*Yuzo Kobori  from Japan (cash plus a big box of School Equipment)
*Mirjam & Bjorn from Germany who donated several hundred dollars to help a poor family in Huaripampa Valley
*Plus a special sponsorship from a group in the USA (see below) 

To give you an idea of how far even a modest donation will go to help some disadvantaged children:
US$100 can buy: *12 excellent quality warm and durable fleece jackets or 550 pens or 120 notebooks

PERUVIAN ANDES ADVENTURES COMMUNITY HELP:

2009/2010: Unchos Village Water & Sewage Scheme
The village of Unchus is located in the east of Huaraz, on the way to the very famous and well known Laguna Churup Lake and Nevado Churup Mountain.  With a population of 600 in habitants, the economy of the village is based in agriculture, cattle and tourism. Many of our Peruvian Andes Adventures guides, cooks and porters live in Unchos.

In 2004 the village started construction of a water and sewage scheme but work was not completed due to lack of planning for the population growth of the village and shortage of funds to construct an expanded scheme necessary to meet the population growth.

After a long wait and much political bickering, during which time the villagers were without a reliable running water supply or sewage removal, work on the scheme has started again, but the villagers and their supporters must fund most of the work and supply the labour themselves and have been actively fundraising.
More than 50 families will benefit from this project after a long wait.

The total cost of the project is 760,000 Peruvian Soles, about US$265,000

Peruvian Andes Adventures is continuing it’s policy of returning some trek profits back into local communities and is donating 65 drainage pipes, at a estimated cost of US$1000

  
Work has started on Unchus Water & Sewage Scheme

2008/2009 : We built a toilet in Cordillera Huayhuash

The Cordillera Huayhuash is not in a National Park but instead falls under the control of the various communities that live there. There is no cohesion between the communities and no joint strategy to manage the fragile recourses and environment of the Cordillera Huayhuash. With all guidebooks now touting the Huayhuash to be one of the “Classic Trekking Circuits” of the world, numbers of trekkers are increasing rapidly and there are no controls or services in the area. There are no toilets or rubbish disposal facilities, groups either dig toilet holes to bury waste with many campsites now becoming full of partially filled toilet holes, or worse still many groups make no effort to bury waste, soiling the areas around campsites.
Peruvian Andes Adventures liaised with the local community leader at Jahuacocha and obtained agreement that if we built a toilet at the campsite, they would maintain and clean it.

Eli Morales coordinated the project, and in February 2009 Eli and some of our Llamac donkey drivers worked hard in the rain to finish building a nice, new and clean toilet

 
                                Under Construction                                            Almost Finished / Clean Toilet!

2008: Warm Clothes for Huarca Children 

Huarca is a small village situated at 3700m at the foot of Huandoy mountain. It has a population of around 500 people living in scattered small houses and the principle means of earning a living is from subsistence farming on small marginally economic farm plots. The village is away from the trekking routes and so does not receive any income or benefits from tourism. 

Distributing Clothes in Huarca Village

We donated good quality fleece suits with jackets and trousers to 130 school children in the area.

2007: Clothes for Children in Shongo Valley

We visited a local community in the Shongo Valley that is on the Olleros to Chavin trekking route.  Families and children here live in very poor conditions, with very basic housing, in many cases no schooling and no health care. We distributed a large quantity of fleece  jackets and  school supplies to children there.

  
                                                               Happy Kids With New Clothes

  Shongo Valley Hut

AMAZING GENEROUSITY!
Our friends from the USA Rosalie Hilburn, , Nancy Rathe , their other friends and members of the Federal Way Lions Club  along with Mark Jedlinski showed extreme generousity in fundraising and accumulating a substantial sum of money which they donated to form the basis of an Education Fund for our delightful young Josue. Josue helped as a porter during a trek with this group in 2007 and they were impressed by his responsible attitude and helpfulness, something quite unusual in a young 17 year old.  Josue has burning ambition to study, gain tertiary qualifications and hopefully later join the police force, but he lacked the necessary funds to undertake his studies. Josue comes from a village where there are limited educational and work opportunities and his Dad recently passed away. Josue wishes to obtain a career which will enable him to help out his mum and younger sister & nieces who also live with Josue’s mum.  The extreme kindness of this group of friends will enable Josue to fulfil his ambition and enrol & complete his tertiary studies.
In August Nancy was back in Huaraz and we had a small celebration where Nancy presented the donation to Josue and his happy mum.   

         Nancy, Josue and Josue’s Mum with Nancy making a presentation to Josue

A BIG Thank You To All Those Nice People !! 

We at Peruvian Andes Adventures are very happy to facilitate and manage any sponsorship or aid that clients would like to offer to a young person, child, family or community within our area.

Contact us for more information On our Peru Trekking Community Aid Project 

Community Aid In Cuzco
Before we started our community Project we were donating some clothes and school equipment to our colleagues in Cusco "Andean Travel Web" & “Peru Treks & Adventure”  who have been involved for several years helping and supporting needy kids in Cusco Area. If  you will be travelling to Cuzco, you can contact our friends there about helping them with their community aid projects.

http://www.andeantravelweb.com/peru/projects/20070419_pampacancha.htm

11 October 2007 Peruvian Andes Adventures donated 75 T-shirts to Sallicancha poor people, district of Ocangate in the Cuzco district

http://www.perutreks.com/projects.html