Newsletter March 2025

Hello everyone!
In Peru, the three-month summer vacation is now over. Many children spent their days without structure and often without parental supervision as their parents were at work. During this time, Estación Esperanza tried to enable the children and all family members to learn, enjoy and develop through free activities. More about this in this newsletter.

From “thief” to toilet installer to the rescue

Recently, Carlos went to the building center to buy materials to install the kindergarten toilets. His old neighbor and childhood friend José (name changed) helped him at the checkout. He informed Carlos that there was a 20% discount with a custome card. However, Carlos did not have such a card and the discount offer was only valid for one more day. Carlos was therefore allowed to transfer his money to José’s card so that he could make the purchase with the discount in the evening (he is not allowed to make purchases during working hours). The next morning, Carlos read a WhatsApp message from José: He wanted to take his own life with an overdose of pills and asked for forgiveness. Reason: He had gambled away Carlos’ money in online blackjack. However, José was found soon enough by his family and they took him to hospital.

On his way home, thieve tried to rob him. When they found nothing, they beat him up. Carlos invited him to church the next day and tried to talk to him afterwards. It wasn’t just the physical sight that caused pity. Carlos learned the whole story of José’s gambling addiction (great success) up to his bankruptcy and high debts. José is very intelligent and learned how to count cards in blackjack. This is illegal in Peru. He was very successful and won around CHF 13,000. His salary is CHF 320. He works six days a week. In the meantime, his luck has changed and he is dependent on support. However, both family and friends refuse to help him. At the moment, he sometimes barely has enough money to eat.

How can he pay Carlos back the 350 francs? We suggested that he should pay it off by working on our property on his day off. The next day, Carlos realized that the construction worker who had to install all the toilets and wash troughs in the kindergarten in Mi Peru had hardly done anything for over a week. He just didn’t really know how to do it. This man was a replacement for the specialist who had fallen ill.Interestingly, José, on the other hand, is very familiar with this kind of work. And, yes, he has now installed everything. He also gave Carlos permission to block him in the national lottery system.

This is one of many cases where Estación Esperanza has been able to assist. The family systems and individual life stories are often complex and sad. We are grateful and it motivates us when we see that advice from our team facilitates people in taking steps in a positive direction.

Ribbon is cut at the
opening

Painting course

Mayor hands over permit

Summer activities

At the beginning of the year, we invited the mothers who regularly take part in Mi Peru activities to gather ideas and recommendations for our summer activities. We communicated the following: “There is something for you, your families and neighbors in Mi Peru. What do you need here? What is helpful? What do you want? With your support, EsEs can do much more and better work.” There was a great willingness to help. Based on the results of this meeting, we and the political community of Mi Peru advertised our summer activities.

On the day of enrollment, we were inundated with people who wanted to sign up. We had to call a halt to enrollment, as we are not only concerned about quantity, but also quality. We ran the following programs in the past few weeks: Ballet, speech, singing, English (for all ages), “niños cientificos” (children as scientists), a painting course with an external artist and “¡Aguja, nunca más!” (Course for adults on dealing with money). We are particularly grateful for the voluntary support of various mothers, which made it much easier to carry out the activities.

Transition process (change of leadership):
Mainteam works with coach

Great support thanks to the mothers in
Mi Peru

Children’s week

The theme of this year’s children’s week was “Jesús sin fronteras” (Jesus without borders). On five mornings, we focused on one continent, with dance, music, theater, biblical stories, a live broadcast to Uganda, crafts, games and much more. The children were able to expand their general knowledge and spend their free time in a meaningful way. In this way, we also wanted to show them that Jesus is present in every place in the world – without borders! God has created every child uniquely and loves them – regardless of the words and treatment of their family and/or environment.

The children’s week was held at the EsEs locations in Mi Peru and Pachacutec. There were also 15 children from Kouri Hanna. At the end of the week, we went on an excursion to a nearby beach. With around 130 children and 15 mothers each day, we were very grateful to have the support of a ‘Youth with a Mission’ Bible group from Holland. We were also very pleased with the help of five mothers from the surrounding area. The empowerment of neighboring women is something new for EsEs. The feedback from two of them: “We have never done anything like this before, providing support as a volunteer. It was so fulfilling and we feel so grateful for this opportunity.”

Children’s week: Theater

Children’s week: Fun & games

Kindergarten highlight: Hallelujah!

Yuppy! We were able to start the kindergarten on our property in Mi Peru on March 18. A milestone! The whole project began in 2019, when we were able to buy the 2007m2 plot after a long search. We only received the official permit on March 11, after several other kindergartens and schools had already started the school year. We were VERY tense. Would it work or not? In Peru’s typical bureaucratic process with lots of idle time, people were constantly finding things that needed to be changed and changed again. Carlos had to adapt documents again and again. For example, when all the documents were together, we were told that the engineer responsible had died and his signatures were no longer valid. We received the permit four days before the planned (or hoped-for) inauguration.

Children’s garden playground

Short and important

Together with Nathalia and Rodolfo, the future operational project managers of EsEs Peru, we are in the transition process. We are formulating the values and processes in writing, which were previously regulated purely verbally. We have around a year for the structural and personnel changes. We are being supported by an external Swiss coach who knows both cultures and languages very well. He is currently visiting us for a few days.

Four new team members have recently joined the project. Marilú and Dayvis (Peruvian couple who had worked with Rodolfo at ‘Youth with a Mission’), Katherine (kindergarten teacher), Jenny (children’s programs).