In 2025, Latidos bolstered preventive health and nutrition in rural communities in the Zaña Valley by empowering community leaders to provide basic health services, combat anemia, and advocate for community members.

The project established tópicos comunales in 3 communities previously without health services. In Peru, tópicos comunales are a first line of response where no health services exist. They offer basic care, early detection of illnesses and education in nutrition, and disease prevention. 120 community leaders received training in managing a tópico comunal.

Latidos also arranged 10 mobile health clinics in communities up and down the Zaña Valey and held 4 public health fairs. Through this project, 600 people were able to access health care.

Latidos’ project “GROW” improved the environment and resilience of women, children and seniors in the Zaña Valley by creating strong local support networks.

Latidos worked with women to strengthen their leadership skills and potential, with children and adolescents to reduce psychosocial risks exacerbated by the pandemic and with the elderly to address their needs and harness their knowledge. They also ran three community libraries, planted 1,600 trees, and ran campaigns to promote health care, including mental health, nutrition and food security.

A special program carried out in nine primary and secondary schools resulted in 200+ new “Ecoguardians” commited to caring for  their environment.

Latidos trained and accompanied community leaders, connecting them to government ministries and other institutions that can lend support. As a results of these interventions, nine grassroots community organizations gained legal standing and will be able to access government programs. Another three are preparing their documents. Eighty-five seniors were registered with the national comprehensive health care service.

Heart-Links is grateful to East London Rotary Charity Foundation for their support of this project.

The pandemic has left communities in Peru struggling. Schools were closed for two years, family incomes plummeted, domestic violence increased, and diseases like dengue compounded the effects of COVID19. Now these communities are facing another crisis: food and fertilizer prices have skyrocketed.

In the Zaña Valley, our partner Latidos is working hard to help families get through this prolonged crisis. Latidos’ team of volunteers are:

• arranging monthly vaccination clinics, COVID19 monitoring, and primary health care in eight villages that have no health clinic
• providing schoolchildren, including children with learning disabilities, with afterschool educational support
• empowering rural women and teaching them how to grow and prepare nutritious food for their homes and the market

Through workshops on nutrition, vaccination campaigns, food aid for individuals with disabilities, health fairs, and workshops for rural women on how to grow healthy, organic food, Latidos will contribute to better health and food security in the valley.

On the educational front, Latidos will work with children in their community library, offer added reinforcement for children with learning disabilities, hold educational day camps in more rural areas, run fun online reading and writing contests (with prizes) that involve the whole family, work with teachers to improve their literacy teaching skills and hold books fairs.

Latidos helped families in the Zaña Valley secure healthy food, masks and cleaning supplies and provided them with both educational support and mental health workshops and counselling. They boosted local vaccination efforts significantly by supplying volunteers and refreshments and carrying out information campaigns.

Latidos also continued to focus on food security and empowering women through workshops with women in personal development, organic gardening and make crafts they can sell.

5.1 End all forms of discrimination against all women and girls everywhere
5.5 Ensure women’s full and effective participation and equal opportunities for leadership
5A Undertake reforms to give women equal rights to economic resources

This two-year project, run by Latidos, offered training and accompaniment to 40 women in Zaña and Cayaltí who grow fresh produce, prepare foods, or make and sell crafts. The project helped them prepare business plans, increase productivity and access new markets. They participated in local fairs and planted a community vergetable garden.

In 2020 during the COVID-19 pandemic when both jobs and food became scarce, the project focused on income generation, sustainable farming methods, nutrition and home food gardens. Latidos provided woman farmers with seeds and then purchased their produce and distributed it to families in need.

4.6 Universal literacy and numeracy.
4.7 Education for sustainable development and global citizenship.

In its first year, this project strengthened the role of the library in promoting reading and writing among community members of all ages and demonstrated to the people of Zaña and Cayaltí that their libraries are not just places for students and researchers but open to the whole community.

Run by Latidos out of the Miraflores library in Zaña and the municipal library in Cayaltí, the project offered children, youth and adults programs and workshops in reading and writing and will host a series of storytelling contests that draw on local cultural traditions and history as well as on the imagination.

With the onset of COVID-19 in 2020, the project went virtual and outdoor. With schools closed for the entire school year, Latidos filled the gap with activities that ran from wellness workshops with parents and children to arts and crafts to reading and storytelling.