Project Peru
Project Peru was established in St. Kilian’s in 2006. The initiative seeks to involve pupils and teachers in poverty relief programmes in South America.
On the outskirts of the large city of Trujillo in northern Peru, thousands of poor families have come to the desolate sand hills overlooking the city in a search for a place to live. This hillside town which is named Alto Trujillo is often described as a pueblo joven (a young town). It is an urban slum, a desert-like hillside where thousands of poor and desperate families are attempting to build a home and find work.
Many of the families have left their hometowns in the mountains or rural areas in search of a better life. They have left the places where they had family ties and a sense of identity and community to come to a barren hillside where there are no trees or shrubs — not even a blade of grass. There they build little houses of adobe bricks and begin a long struggle for the basic necessities of food, water, sanitation, transportation, and above all, a job.
Despite the grinding poverty there are signs of hope, as women plant flowers outside their doors and leaders organize the community to press the government to provide the basics of water, electricity, latrines, and schools. The church is there, too, helping with soup kitchens, a school for handicapped children, chapels, and plans for new job training programs. There are signs of hope, too, in the children – ever resilient – laughing and playing games in the dirt streets and climbing the hills of sand.
Since 2008 over 50 St. Kilian’s students and teachers have made the journey to Peru, working in some of the poorest areas of that country. To date, over 70,000 Euro has been raised funding the building of emergency relief housing and a school.
Click to link to Project Peru website.
