Our team visited all three regions where Heart-Links’ partners work: Cajamarca, in the northeastern Andes; the Zaña Valley, in the central coast lowlands; and the Chiclayo Metropolitan Area, also in the central coast lowlands, one hour south from Zaña.

In Cajamarca, we met with the volunteers who run the Rural Libraries Network, a 54-year-old association that supplies books to almost 300 remote libraries across Cajamarca and adjacent provinces. In addition to publishing books, the network promotes literacy and records and preserves traditional knowledge and culture. A principle tool is the Enciclopedia Campesina, a project financed by Heart-Links. We stayed at the Rural Libraries guesthouse in Cajamarca. The building is also the home of the main library, offices and meeting rooms.

Also in Cajamarca is ACIES, a community development organization that works in the impoverished city neighborhood of Quiritimayo. In the Quiritimayo Cultural Centre, ACIES offers an afterschool program that includes educational support, ecological workshops and cleanups, reading circles, writing groups, and art classes. ACIES also works with women, delivering workshops in mental health self-care and artisanal training. ACIES runs similar programs in the rural village of Pomabamba, as well an alternative school for impoverished children and youth, where they also learn about water conservation, gardening, and raising small animals.

In Zaña, we met the members of Latidos. In communities up and down the Zaña Valley, this association runs afterschool programs, breakfast and lunch programs, mental health workshops, entrepreneurial training for women and reforestation and forest protection. Latidos is strongly involved in the local business community, including agrobusiness, and works with them to practice corporate social responsibility, such as hiring locally. We stayed in the lovely Latidos guesthouse.

Our other partner in Zaña is Madre Oliva Association. They run an afterschool program in the rural hamlet of Nuevo Mocupe, where children receive educational support and recreation. The association also delivers food aid, clothing, medication and mental health training and counselling  to approximately 20 vulnerable families.

Finally, we went to the bustling metropolis of Chiclayo, and stayed in a charming modest downtown hotel. We first met with members of Centro Esperanza. This agency runs numerous programs from their Chiclayo office and premises, but the program Heart-Links supports is in Coloche, a rural community in Lambayeque. There, Centro Esperanza has started a women’s farming collective called MUFUM (Women for a Better Future). The women of MUFUM raise and market fast-growing guinea pigs. Centro Esperanza has provided production training, ecological workshops, leadership development and mental health programs. The project is thriving.

Our final visit was with Centro Santa Angela. Founded 41 years ago by the Ursuline Sisters of Chatham, the centre promotes ecological communities in the impoverished urban district of José Leonardo Ortiz, assisting local residents to rescue parkland, develop community spirit, and end harmful ecological practices. In its downtown office, Centro Santa Angela runs programs, also sponsored by Heart-Links, aimed at ending family violence and misogyny, developing community leaders and good citizens, and exercising vigilance against corruption.

It was wonderful to see the positive impact our partners are making in the lives of hundreds of children, youth, women and men in northern Peru. We can say with confidence that your donations to Heart-Links are helping create a more just world.

You can help a child succeed.

This GOOD DEED will provide primary schoolchildren with afterschool educational reinforcement in reading, mathematics, arts and crafts, and social interaction. It will be led by Heart-Links’ partner Madre Oliva Association in Nuevo Mocupe. This program will run six days a week, working closely with parents and teachers to ensure children progress. Nutritional snacks will also be supplied. 

The program will help these children get back on track with their learning (and have fun doing it).

Every child deserves a quality education. But without support, these children are at risk of dropping out. This GOOD DEED aims to help these children succeed at primary school, leading to further schooling and more opportunities as the children grow.

For impoverished people in Peru, education remains one of the best routes to higher incomes and greater job security. Giving these children a more solid foundation is the long-term aim of this GOOD DEED.

If you want to provide additional support to the 24 Canadian charities that are participating in the 24 GOOD DEEDS Charity Advent Calendar, click the button below.

To help you get ready, we wanted to let you know about a very special initiative Heart-Links is taking part in this giving season: the 24 GOOD DEEDS charity advent calendar.

• For just $24 you can support 24 projects around the world
• All projects are implemented by registered Canadian charities
• Order one for yourself or as a meaningful gift (you can add a personalized message)
• Available as a 3D physical calendar and as a digital version

Pssst! One of the projects is run by Heart-Links’ partner Madre Oliva Association.

Here’s how the calendar works: On December 1st, open door number one. The next day, door number two. Behind each door you’ll learn what you donation is achieving. More information about each project will be available on the 24GoodDeeds website.

This holiday season, join us in making the world a better place, one GOOD DEED at a time.

For the last several years, Madre Oliva Association has worked closely with vulnerable families in the rural hamlet of Nuevo Mocupe, just outside Zaña.

They have attended to the needs of children and adults with developmental disabilities and others who are finding it increasingly difficult to feed themselves and their families because of rising prices.

In the wake of COVID-19, Madre Oliva Association also started an afterschool program for children to help address the educational and nutritional gaps exacerbated by two years of school closures and limits on travel (which reduced employment opportunities).

Six days a week, they provide 35 children with reinforcement in reading, numeracy, art and social skills as well as a nutritional snack. Therapists offer workshops every two months to the children’s parents on topics such as mental health, how to detect learning disabilities, COVID-19, and parent-child relationships.

On December 7, hours before what was to be his third impeachment hearing in the short 17 months he has occupied the office, President Pedro Castillo moved to dissolve Congress. He was arrested the same day, and shortly afterward Vice President Dina Bularte assumed his office. She is Peru’s sixth president in six years.

On learning of Castillo’s arrest, thousands of Peruvians took to the streets to protest his ouster. At least seven Castillo supporters have died so far in the violence.

Chronic instability has had and continues to have dire consequences for the Peruvian population. Any action by government is stalled, services are delayed. Much-needed development and reform is postponed indefinately. Civic unrest, which at least initially was concentrated mostly in the South, has disrupted supply lines and increased already high transporation fares. Food is not getting to market.

For our partners in Zaña, Chiclayo and Cajamarca, the current crisis has made already difficult conditions much more difficult. They know that vulnerable populations are always the most hurt. They also see that their programs to foster ethical and democratic leadership, to build resilient sustainable communities and to attend to basic needs, including food, among other initiatives, help people in their communities ride out crises like these and plant the seeds of a better future.

Heart-Links expresses our solidarity with the Peruvian people, who deserve so much better from their representatives in government. We are encouraged by the compassion, integrity and commitment of people like the leaders of Madre Oliva Association, Latidos, ACIES, Rural Libraries, Centro Santa Angela and Centro Esperanza—our partners. Their work offers hope for a better world for Peruvians and inspiration for people everywhere.