Newsletter February 2022

We had a good start into the new year. At the beginning of January, various employees were still on vacation. During the holidays, our employees Anakarina and Abraham and their five-year-old son finally visited their families in Venezuela again after a good four years. At the beginning of 2021, they agreed with us to save as large an amount as possible every month. Her persistence paid off.

Newsletter February 2022 (German PDF)

Overview newsletters

Team

For Recently, we conducted the annual appraisals with our employees. We agreed on annual targets. Carlos and I were also able to learn a lot thanks to constructive feedback. The cooperation and team leadership with the extended workforce wants to be redefined again and again. We recently employed one of our long-standing employees (Anakarina) as manager in the Pachacutec project house. We hope that we will achieve more consistency in the structural area.

At the end of last year, another family from Venzuela joined our team: Esther, Samuel and their one-year-old son, Samuel-David. We have known them for over three years and are delighted that they are now part of the Estación Esperanza family. They also live in the project house Pachacutec. In addition to the usual responsibilities, Samuel teaches chess, works as a youth worker and would like to set up discussion groups with adults. Esther is a dance teacher. Their two special offerings, women’s dance group and ballet, are met with great interest. A dream comes true for Señora Ortencia and her daughter Maria: the girl takes ballet lessons. Her father has left the family and refuses any support. Mother and daughter sell homemade marcianos (ice cream sticks made from fruit juice) on the street. Often they earn a maximum of 4 – 5 CHF per day, hardly enough for the necessities. Both took part in the children’s week with great enthusiasm. This was despite the fact that they were able to work four hours less a day as a result. So we were able to get to know Señora Ortencia better. We will now accompany you and Maria more intensively and – where necessary and sensible – also support you.

children week

At the moment, various COVID-19-related restrictions are being taken rather lightly. That’s why we were able to hold a children’s week again. The program was run twice: in the morning in project house 1 (Kouri Hanna), in the afternoon in project house 2 (Pachacutec). The theme was “Fuera de este mundo” (= Not of this world). We linked this topic as follows: lies or half-truths, arguments, envy and much more are unfortunately part of everyday life. Accordingly, Christian values such as honesty, love, mercy, humility, patience, justice, etc. are “not of this world”. We passed these values on to the children through theatre, games, small thematic groups and also songs. For this occasion we received the support of a church youth group from Huancayo in the Andes. They stayed in the project house Pachacutec.

So we had a full house here.

We also integrated young people with whom we are in contact into the children’s week. They accepted their responsibility – mostly – with a lot of motivation. Only here and there did they forget that they actually had role models. They then started joking instead of keeping the kids quiet. Of course, this is part of the normal maturation process. 25-year-old Mirian also helped out for a few days. She is five months pregnant and was recently left by her husband, who is four years her junior. I am in close contact with her. She now lives with her parents again, suffers from depression and has hardly ever left her room in the past few weeks. Fortunately, she responded positively to my invitation to help with children’s week. It did her good.

nursery / schoolhouse

The first construction phase was successfully completed (stable, earthquake-proof foundation, pillars, ceiling). When will we continue building? It depends on the financial situation. We hope that the kindergarten wing can be completed in 2022. If everything goes well, we can start with the first vintage in March 2023.

oil spill

The beaches just minutes from us are full of oil. Dreadful! Repsol (nearby oil refinery) had infiltrated various safety regulations. It came to a terrible accident: around 6000 barrels of heavy oil flowed into the sea. This was also informed in Switzerland. Now the company is tryingvto avoid full responsibility.

The day after the accident, they wanted to clear things up with just eight people (…!?). They wanted to give food packages as compensation to the fishermen whose livelihoods had been destroyed. But some do not accept this. Repsol’s strategy now is to hire people from Ventanilla to do the cleaning work and pay good wages. In this way, some benefit from the situation and riots can be prevented. Our neighbors have also temporarily received well-paid jobs in this way.

It is said that you can suck up the oil with your hair. Hair collection points have therefore been set up in Ventanilla. Professional barbers are cutting hundreds of people’s hair for free these days.

These are then donated to clean up the sea.

highlights in February

The Four

The organization Campus for Christ trains people worldwide to pass on the biblical message. In each case, the focus is on the practical implementation of Christian values. Corresponding training also took place in the Pachacutec project house. Employees from various parishes took part. They took valuable inspiration, creative ideas and attractive training material home with them.

Floorbal (=Unihockey) Peru Cup

Last weekend the Peru Cup tournament of floorball took place. We conducted it at a nearby sports field. Teams from Cusco, Tarapoto (Rainforest), Trujillo (North), Chimbote (North) and from different places in Lima took part.

This sport is hardly known in Latin America. She came to the country via the Swiss association «Unihockey für Strassenkinder». The structure is designed in such a way that the general quality of life is sustainably improved. Christian concerns such as charity, solidarity and fairness are brought closer. Fortunately, there are such floorball teams at more and more locations. Our employee Rodolfo is responsible for floorball in Lima. This year we want to train new leaders in different churches and schools. From our own experience, this approach is worthwhile. Some parents bought floorball sticks for their teenagers as a Christmas present. We received these from Switzerland and sell them at a social price. Many young people are so motivated that they took part in the training every day from 7-9 a.m. during our two-week intensive course (beginning of February). This meant the following: get up early for the summer holidays!

We wish you all the best and God’s blessings.

Greetings from Lima