A lot has happened since this project started four months ago.

The 21 families began by forming an association and electing five women and one man to the board. A woman was elected chair.

Then they built pens for their guinea pigs and planted alfalfa to feed them. They also learned to make compost from the agricultural waste.

As part of their learning, they attended workshops on guinea pig health and hygiene, proper feeding, and reproduction. They also learned about bookkeeping.

Pastry making drew even more interest, with seven teenagers joining their moms to learn to make cakes and turnovers. Some of the women plant to take what they’ve learned to started home-based microbusinesses.

There is one more thing that is not so easy to measure. The families feel united as a community and committed to building a better future together.

The project Heart-Links’ donors funded provided laying hens and incubators, as well as training, to help community members feed themselves and their families. It also helped them organize and learn how to work together—women and men—to build a better, sustainable future.

María and other women saw changes in their relationships with their husbands and their positions in the community. “Some men are also learning the chores that we women do in the home,” María told us. “And well, for me and my family, my husband has also joined in raising animals. Because before, they thought that men only went out to work and we took care of the house and the animals. Not anymore.”

Today in San Isidro, ECODAE members raise chicken and sheep, and grow vegetables, passion fruit and papayas. They no longer need funding from Heart-Links to keep moving forward.

And María? She is now president of ECODAE.

Heart-Links has started helping another community in the region reach their dreams.

That was something María wanted, too. “We also want other women to learn what we’ve learned from the project—to improve their knowledge of raising small animals and to participate in decision-making at home and in the community,” she told us. “That they understand that women should be respected and valued. That household chores, raising animals and farmwork should be recognized and valued as work we women do that contributes to the household.”

Thank you for the support you gave María when she needed it. Investing in women like María is one way Heart-Links, with your help, is creating a more just world.

Centro Santa Angela has drawn up an action plan to get food and supplies to 200 families in the district. They are also educating their neighbours and the general public about the dangers of water-borne diseases and how to prevent contagion.

Through the Ecological Program supported by Heart-Links, they are helping people in the urban community of San Miguel to pump the water out of overrun drainage system and to access government relief.

Centro Esperanza, also based in José Leonardo Ortiz, is working with rural families affected by the flooding. They held workshops with 200 families from four communities in Illimo to show them how to use moringa seeds to purify the muddy river waters stirred up by the cyclone. These communities have been forced to resort to river water because well water in the region is contiminated with arsenic.

“The families of Coloche and San Isidro were the most affected [by the cyclone], because they were completely cut off, the waters were waist-high,” Centro Esperanza reports. “Now that the waters have receded, we can reach them. The district municipality is ready to work with us to improve the water and on this occasion provided the containers we used to show people how the water cleared up and bacteria was eliminated by the moringa.”

Centro Esperanza also helped community members fill out the very complicated forms they must submit to access emergency support from the government.

Because of strong local organizations like Centro Esperanza and Centro Santa Angela and the commitment and generosity of their leaders, these communities are not alone during this crisis.

Do you want to invest in strong community-based organization in northern Peru? Join our monthly donor family so you can help organizations like Centro Santa Angela and Centro Esperanza all year round.

There was, however, the fragile beginning of a community association. Community members had formed this organization after the floods of 2017 drove them from their homes. Even back then, they knew that the only way to recover from the catasptrophe and get ahead was by working together.

To see this same community today in the video below—the very same people we met back in 2019—is truly heart-warming. See (and hear) for yourself what life in San Isidro is like today. Learn what this generous and determined community has accomplished and how our partner Centro Esperanza helped them get there. As a Heart-Links supporter, you, too, helped make this happen. So thank you!

Video titles read as follows:

• Centro Esperanza, Chiclayo, with support from Heart-Links, Canada, has since 2019 carried out the project “Promoting the Development of Rural Families, Victims of El Niño, in San Isidro, Illimo.”
• During 3 years, they received training in organic farming and raising small animal and now they are moving ahead communally.
• 23 families were affected by the rains but through this project, they were able to recover, and today they are members of the association Community Enterprise for Sustainable Development (ECODAE).
• They learned to make organic fertilizers and bioinsecticides and to prevent disease in their animals. Now they are growing organic passion fruit and papaya as well as raising organic chickens and pelibüey sheep.
• As part of the project, they received workshops about social skills, the roles assigned to men and women, marketing strategies, and other topics.

The families of the rural community of San Isidro have come a long way since 2017, when they fled their homes because of floods that damaged or destroyed their houses, lands, crops, animals, irrigation system, and water supply. Today, with support from Heart-Links partner Centro Esperanza, they grow and sell organic vegetables, raise free-run chickens and produce organic eggs for themselves and the market, raise sheep and have planted an orchard that will produce passion fruit and papaya for market.

But it hasn’t been easy. In 2022, fertilizer, food and transportation prices skyrocketed, making it harder than ever to buy food or travel for work. Late in the year, countrywide protests interrupted supply chains, further undermining food security. Despite these challenges, the families of San Isidro made great strides:

• The community received a donation of sheep from another institution which was impressed by the success of the project sponsored by Heart-Links.
• A focus in 2022 was to get youth involved. Community youth learned about organic gardening, caring for sheep, communications and gender equality.
• The community successfully negotiated with municipal authorities for a place in town to sell their produce.
• They also arranged with the nearby Túcume Museum to sell their organic produce on a monthly basis at the site.
• A woman was elected president of San Isidro’s community association.
• One family both produces and sells organic fertilizer.
• The families used some of their earnings to donate educational games to the local school. They wanted to show solidarity as well as the importance of play in learning.
• More community members want to join the association.
• Inspired by San Isidro, a neighbouring community wants to start a similar project.

And there is so much more. But sometimes pictures tell the story better. These photos represent the first six months of this project in 2022:

As Peru enters its third month of quarantine, Heart-Links’ partners continue to work to stop the disease’s spread and to keep the people in their communities safe and healthy.

In José Leonardo Ortiz, in Lambayeque province, Centro Santa Angela is encouraging children in their ecological program to become citizen reporters. From their homes, boys and girls are delivering public service messages to their friends and neighbours by video and home-made posters placed in their windows for passersby to see.

What are the messages children are delivering? Stay at home. Continue to reduce, reuse and recycle. Dispose properly of tissues and other waste that could be infected with COVID-19. Spread love.

As of May 31, Peru reports 164,476 confirmed cases of COVID-19. Authorities have extended the quarantine to the end of June, although some industries will be allowed to resume operations. Lambayeque province, which includes José Leondardo Ortiz, continues to be one of the hardest hit regions, but there are signs of hope. On May 29, Lambayeque for the first time saw a decrease in the daily number of fatalities.

José Leonardo Ortiz reports 1,000 cases and 85 deaths.

Communities are struggling to meet current emergency needs and at the same time prepare for life after lockdown.

In San Isidro, a rural community still recovering from the 2017 floods that washed away homes, crops, tools and the community well, people have learned that their best defence against threats like COVID-19 is to pool their resources and skills and plan their future together.

With funds provided by Heart-Links’ donors, our partner Centro Esperanza has worked with the community over the last year to establish a community association, develop sustainable farming practices, ensure a water supply for consumption and irrigation and defend community members’ rights under Peruvian law.

“I’ve always said that if we organize, we can achieve our goals,” says association president José Santamaría. “Now people are beginning to participate more. They see we are serious. They see the benefits. It’s the only way we’ll move forward.”

With the onset of COVID-19 and disruptions in agriculture and commerce, the association has been forced to redirect some of those project funds to purchasing food for community members. Some, but not all. They decided to put aside monies earmarked for their guinea pig business until COVID-19 has passed. “They asked us to reserve it because it’s the only thing they’ll have to be able to survive afterward,” said project coordinator Ana Mio.

COVID-19 has spread to the countryside, where health care services are inadequate and water is scarce. In a community near San Isidro, seven people have died recently in quick succession. Centro Esperanza is sharing with community leaders guidelines about social distancing and hygiene. And they are working with them to access government emergency benefits.

In the coming months, Heart-Links hopes to reinforce the efforts of families in San Isidro “to move forward.” We, too, want to ensure community members are able to meet their needs now and in the future. Your donations will help the people of San Isidro reach their goals.

In Peru, the disease’s reach and impact reflect just such inequalities. As of April 22, confirmed cases of COVID-19 numbered 19,250 nationally, and 530 people are known to have died from the virus. Peru’s president, Martín Vizcarra, noted with satisfaction that the fatality rate nationally is about half the worldwide average.

But Vizcarra’s statement masks disparities in healthcare, infrastructure and income between the capital and other parts of the country. Although Lima reports by far the most confirmed cases, roughly one-fifth of COVID-19 deaths have occurred in the northern province of Lambayeque, where most of Heart-Links’ partners live and work. In fact, the fatality rate in Lambayeque (11.23%) is about 6 times that of Lima (1.87%).

In Lambayeque, 864 cases of COVID-19 have been confirmed and 97 people have died.

For Heart-Links, this reality underscores the need to continue to support programs in northern Peru aimed at improving living conditions, protecting the environment and ending the social injustices that keep people in poverty.

We thank all of you for joining us in this important work.

Like many other organizations and businesses and like you yourselves, Heart-Links has taken steps to help slow the spread of COVID-19 and keep ourselves and the people we come into contact with safe.

We were very sad to have to cancel our 2020 Solidarity Trip, which was to leave in late June. The Solidarity Trip is key to Heart-Links’ mission to raise awareness about global issues and help develop good global citizens. We had a wonderful group of travellers eager to meet Heart-Links’ partners in Peru and walk in solidarity with the communities they serve.

Despite these hard decisions, it is heartening to see so many Canadians doing their part to flatten the curve and offering support to people in our local communities who need it. We encourage you also to remember the people around the world who are facing this pandemic, often with far fewer resources than we have in Canada.

In Peru, COVID-19 shot from 1 to 263 cases in just two weeks. Despite a nationwide quarantine, as of March 23, cases numbered 395, with 36 hospitalizations and 5 deaths. Lambayeque province, where many of Heart-Links’ partners work, reports 8 confirmed cases. With only 236 ICU beds in the entire country, the healthcare system is scrambling to prepare. To make matters worse, several areas of Peru, including the Zaña Valley, are also battling outbreaks of dengue.

We realize that here at home, people are dealing with increased demands and often very difficult circumstances. We also know many people want to help out where they can.

If you would like to show your solidarity and help our partners in Peru help people in need in their communities, consider making a donation.

We have to keep our physical distance, but there are still ways to reach out to each other. Making a donation to Heart-Links is one.

In solidarity.