Young Peruvian family receives the all clear from doctors about TB

Two of our young people, Natali and Hugo, and their family were diagnosed with TB back in March. But, thankfully, they have now been given the all clear by doctors.

Hugo is now officially non-contagious, even though he has to continue his treatment for at least another four months. Four-year-old Luís is also non-contagious and has been allowed to go back to his nursery. He too will have to continue his treatment for several months yet, but he's very glad to be able to see his little nursery friends again.

Baby Lenny hasn't caught the disease and Natali is undergoing regular tests for the foreseeable future to make sure that she's still clear. She has been able to go back to work at her training placement with Wall Luxury Essentials and is coping very well.

The Colour of Hope continues to provide regular financial and emotional support to this young family, mainly thanks to funds donated from Wall staff. This is enabling them to eat a better diet, including fresh fruit and vegetables, vitamin supplements and high protein foods.

Despite all their problems and difficulties, Natali and Hugo are two of our most highly motivated young people. They always put their all into caring for their two children and really deserve the support they are receiving. Once again, thank you to all those who are involved in helping this young family.

Chronic child malnutrition in Peru will drop to 16% in 2011

At the end of 2007, an estimated 750 thousand Peruvian children were suffering from chronic malnutrition in Peru.

Yet in 2011, chronic child malnutrition will drop to 16 percent in Peru, said the executive secretary of the Fight Against Poverty Discussion Forum (MCLCP), Félix Grandez. This reduction will mainly be seen in children under the age of three who live in rural areas.

Grandez added that anemia will have dropped to 20% among children and pregnant women by the same year.

He also remarked that the government is investing approximately 1.2 million dollars in programs to help poor rural populations.

Yet 16% is still an awfully large percentage of the country's child population. It's a reminder that even though Peru's economy is expanding and exports are beginning to increase, the country still has many serious internal problems to deal with.

Text courtesy of Living in Peru

Poverty in Peru reduced to 36.2% last year

A report from Peru’s National Institute of Statistics and Informatics (INEI) states that last year poverty in Peru was reduced by 3.1% - from 39.3% in 2007 to 36.2% in 2008.

According to INEI, in 2007, poverty dropped by 5.2%, from 44.5% (2006) to 39.3% (2007).

The World Bank reported that progression of poverty reduction figures presented by Peru have a reasonable precision, because in last 4 years the country has kept a method of calculation comparable in time.

These studies were supervised by an Advisory Committee comprised of representatives from government institutions, the academic community, think tanks and international organizations such as the World Bank, the Inter-American Development Bank and France’s Institute for Research on Development.

Source: Andina News Agency

Young family copes with TB diagnosis

Back in March, Natali’s husband and four-year-old son were diagnosed with TB. Natali also had to undergo tests to see if she had been infected. The test results came back a week ago, and she was over the moon to be given the all-clear. This means she has been able to go back to work and resume her normal routine.

Hugo is now a few weeks into his treatment, which is long and extremely intensive, but apart from expected side effects, he says he is starting to feel stronger and more himself. Luís, Natali’s four-year-old will also be starting treatment in the next few days once the necessary documents come through.

TB is sadly extremely common in Peru, perpetuated by cramped living conditions and poor diets. But with the right treatment and a good diet the disease is curable in the vast majority of cases.

A couple of weeks ago, I was able to take a car load of donations up to Natali and her family, with the help of staff from CEDRO, a local NGO. The items included vitamins for the whole family, kindly donated by Judith and Hernán Balcázar and staff at Wall Luxury Essentials, tins of fish, rice, lentils, beans and other pulses from CEDRO and milk, tuna and other tins from Blanca de Romero from Bianco de Mare textiles factory. I also included some clothes and toys that had been donated to The Colour of Hope.

Thank you to all those who are supporting Natali and Hugo’s young family, especially their sponsors Jess and Rosa Batten-Stevens, Judith and Hernán Balcázar and all the representatives of Wall Luxury Essentials, Monica Ochoa from CEDRO, and Blanca de Romero and all her staff at Bianco de Mare textiles factory.

People's Opinion on Global Issues

We all know what the Seven Wonders of the World are, the Top 500 Companies and even the World's Strongest Man. Yet there is no centralised information about what the biggest problems of the world are, at least not from the people's point of view.

Felipe, from Costa Rica, has begun an internet poll about global issues and is hoping to collect enough information to be able to kick-start social projects based on the results. Visit his website at http://topissues.intribu.org/ to cast your vote and make your opinion count, or propose what you think is the world's most important problem this year.

Trip to Huancayo

Last Saturday I travelled up to Huancayo, one of Peru's Andean regions, to visit a project being run by NGO, El Shaddai, in conjunction with The Peru Children's Trust. I was able to take part in the charity's Christmas celebrations and meet many of the children and young people who are benefitting from their projects. We also visited a few of the children's homes and saw the conditions they were living in (see photos).

Both The Peru Children's Trust and its Peruvian branch, El Shaddai, appear to have a great deal in common with The Colour of Hope. Their work aims to raise the standards of living for poor children and young people in the Huancayo area, improving their housing, funding healthcare, enabling their education and providing family guidance and teaching. The team has recently built an extensive set of workshops, helping the young people to learn vocational skills such as hairdressing, welding, carpentry, dressmaking, cooking and grain milling. This support will hopefully enable the young people to find employment or set up their own small businesses in the near future.

The Colour of Hope trustees offered to share our training courses with El Shaddai so that they can extend the support they are already providing their young people, helping them to find work, and perhaps setting up a microcredit scheme. We will maintain good links with the El Shaddai team and hope that there will be further opportunities to work together in the future.

Donation from REAP South Missionary Organisation

In the last few days of December, The Colour of Hope received a kind donation of blankets for young children and babies from American Missionary Organisation, REAP South. Although we don't work directly with these age groups, we always try to find good homes for any donations and in fact some of the young people we work with have babies and children.

We've handed out at least 11 blankets so far to single mothers and women living in conditions of extreme poverty all across Lima. Natali, one of our project participants, took a couple for her young son and some for her sister and sister in law who also have little toddlers. They all live in a shanty town called Canto Grande in the district of San Juan de Lurigancho. Another couple went to a lady in Villa El Salvador, another extremely poor area of Lima, and another is going to a young girl in Manchay, a shanty town in southern Lima.

We only have a few left now, but if anyone knows of someone in Lima who would need a blanket please let us know. There were all kinds of sizes, colours and patterns, but the ones we have left are mainly for toddlers, although I think there are a couple of tiny ones still. If we don't find anyone else to give the blankets to, I will take them to Reina de la Paz, a refuge for young single mothers in Salamanca.

Thank you very much REAP South!

Wall, Luxury Fibre Clothing Company, supports young people in Peru

Hernán and Judith Balcázar founded Wall, a luxury fibre clothing company, in 1997. Both their online catalogue and boutique in London’s Notting Hill attract a wide-ranging, worldwide client base.

Truly natural fibres are becoming an increasingly rare commodity. Wall works with several different fibres, including long staple Peruvian pima cotton, pure Irish linen, silky alpaca and super fine vicuña, which feel exquisite next to the skin and retain their quality for a very long time.

The company is underpinned by Hernán and Judith’s personal experiences of living and working in Peru. An important decision in starting the business was to do something that could create more employment in Peru.

“From what we saw charity could not create the same benefits as work. Job opportunities and education are very important,”
- Hernán

The company works as much as possible with small, family-owned businesses. It aims to give people a sense of pride in their work and enable them to educate their children.

It also endeavours to improve conditions in the supply chain, requiring all its suppliers to abide by a “code of conduct”. In order to do business with Wall, suppliers must ensure safe working conditions, fair wages and a harassment-free work environment for their staff.

Wall’s current community project is to offer 2-year vocational training placements to disadvantaged young people in Lima. The young people will receive a fair wage throughout the two years and by the end of their placements, will have ample experience in the textile industry.

In early December, Judith Balcázar and other Wall representatives interviewed a group of candidates for the first placement. The Colour of Hope is delighted to confirm that, Natali, the candidate we put forward, won the selection process and will shortly become Wall’s first sponsored trainee! (See photos)

Natali grew up in Canto Grande, a shanty town on the outskirts of Lima. She spent most of her childhood on the streets, and at 17, became pregnant with her son, Luis. Since Luis was born, she has struggled against all odds to care for him, selling sweets on the roadside, busking and begging on buses. She works long hours, day in day out and earns less than $2 a day.

But now, thanks to Wall and The Colour of Hope, Natali will have the chance to escape the poverty trap and to improve living conditions for her family. She is set to start her placement with Wall in January 2008 and will participate in The Colour of Hope’s employment preparation and life-skills courses and until then. Congratulations Natali!

Business Executives Annual Conference 2007

Each year, a Business Executives Annual Conference (Conferencia Anual de Ejecutivos – CADE) is held in Peru.

The 45^th CADE took place this year from 29^th November to 1^st December in the city of Trujillo in northern Peru. The objective of this year’s debate was to determine “Everything we need to be a just and prosperous country”, or in the words of the CADE committee, to determine what Peru needs to do in order to become a first world country within the next 30 years.

However, the conclusion this year seems sadly little more than a reinforcement of what was established in previous years, namely, the need to gain a better understanding of how to breach the ever widening ‘rich poor divide’.

Things have advanced very little since 2006. As one of the members of the audience commented, “Peru is a long way off being a just and prosperous country, because it’s much easier to be prosperous than just.” Only very few of the many speakers who attended the event commented on what actually needs be done to combat poverty and to encourage social integration.

The two foreign speakers, Juan Enríquez Cabot and Xavire Sala-i-Martín claimed that the only way to attain justice, equality and prosperity is by investing in the future, and specifically by investing in education. 84% of those who attended CADE 2007 agreed that the Peruvian government’s main goal should be to improve the quality of the country’s education.

Yet the need to invest in education comes as old news – the last Global Competitiveness Report from the World Economic Forum ranked Peruvian primary education 95^th out of 131 countries - the worst in the whole of South America.

The president of CADE 2007, Diego de la Torre (pictured above), called attention to the need for greater social responsibility and anthropological sensitivity as new concepts that should be form the basis of any enterprise in Peru. And the president of the Peruvian Institute of Business Administration (Instituto Peruano de Administracion de Empresas - IPAE), Claudio Herzka (pictured above), stated that in order to become more competitive, Peru needs to focus on the long-term.

Yet both of these proposals require long term investment, commitment and stability; goals that despite nearly 6 years of steady economic growth, Peru still hasn’t attained. Fernando Zavala, ex Economics Minister stated that Peru’s economy is above the average for Latin America and 95% of those who attended CADE 2007 agreed that Peru is advancing. Yet there is still a lot of work to be done with regards to poverty reduction – 43% of Peru is still living below the poverty line.

Javier Abugattás, a member of the panel, confirmed that one of the main obstacles to reducing poverty is the radical centralism that characterizes Peru. And Jaime Saavedra, another panel member, added that there is a great deal of inequality regarding the distribution of the country’s basic services – it is almost impossible for prospective businessmen from jungle regions to generate a sizeable income when the communication and transport systems are so deficient.

The discussion could have gone on for much longer, but when Fernando Zavala requested a second 6-minute extension, many members of the audience complained that they’d “be late for lunch”. It seems they had discussed poverty reduction for far long enough. Unfortunately, for the majority of Peruvians the debate is only just getting started.

Photo courtesy of El Comercio, Sunday 2nd December edition

El VRAE - The Forgotten Valley of Peru

More coca is produced in the VRAE (River Apurímac and River Ene Valley) than anywhere else in Peru. Naturally, it has become an epicentre for cocaine production and is a regular drug trafficking route.

The entire valley has only one local police station and six policemen. The station is cut off from all communication given that the only telephone was disconnected 6 months ago due to unpaid bills.

54.27% of the valley's population is poor and 44.84% is extremely poor. 51% are suffering from chronic malnutrition.

80% of housing lacks potable water and 77% has no street lighting.

The life expectancy for women in the valley is 60 and 64 for men.

Of the 200,000 people living in the valley, only 10,000 (5%) have finished secondary school.

30% of the population as a whole and 49% of women in the valley is illiterate.

Anteccasa, one of the valley's typical towns, has no running water, electricity or medical service. There is only one primary school for the 40 children and the teacher hardly ever turns up. If the children want to study, they must walk more than 3 hours in order to reach the next school. The nearest secondary school is even further away; nobody in Anteccasa has ever been.

The medical centre in Pichari, another VRAE town, is falling to bits. Patients must queue for hours to register because notes are taken by hand. Even if there were a computer it wouldn't be of much use because the electricity cuts out on a regular basis, ruining the few bits of medical equipment the centre has managed to obtain. Vaccinations have to be put between blocks of ice until the electricity returns and the night team quite often works by candlelight. The centre's medical staff has to work around the clock because there are not enough of them for the number of patients. The situation is the same in 8 other medical centres throughout the VRAE and there is only one hospital for the entire valley.

In 2006, the Peruvian government initiated "Plan VRAE" - "an option of peace and development for the VRAE", yet there have been no great changes to the valley's education system, medical service and general standard of living so far. The VRAE police headquarters, opened by the Plan in December last year, has only one van - hardly even sufficient to patrol the edges of the 13,000 square kilometre valley. The Plan's budget has been increased for 2008, and after a recent terrorist attack in Ocobamba, the area has been re-declared a state of emergency. But this is not enough for the VRAE people. They need to see change now, not in two, three or four years time.

Last Monday, 5th November, I posted a report by Andres Oppenheimer, entitled, "Peru may be the next rising star in Latin America". Oppenheimer states, "Peru has a long way to go, especially when it comes to competing in the global economy...but people who are optimistic about Peru in the long run may be right...it may indeed become a star economy in the not-so-distant future." This optimism may well be true for the country's economy in general; many parts of Peru are seeing steady progress and change. But the VRAE is by no means one of these parts; in the general air of development and success, the VRAE and other similar areas are all too easily forgotten.

Map courtesy of uterodemarita.com

The Oppenheimer Report - Peru may be the next rising star in Latin America

When I asked senior World Bank economist Marcelo M. Giugale in a recent television interview which countries will be the economic stars of Latin America over the next 20 years, I was surprised by his answer. The first country he mentioned was Peru.

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''Peru?'' I asked, somewhat incredulous. When economists talk about Latin America's bright spots, the first country they usually cite is Chile, which has been growing steadily for nearly two decades and has reduced poverty from about 40 percent in the early '90s to about 15 percent today, more than any other country in the region.

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When pressed for other examples of Latin American countries likely to prosper in the near future, many cite Brazil. It's a giant country that is moving toward modernity at a snail's pace, but -- with more than 50 percent of South America's GDP -- is raising high expectations because of its sheer size, and its leftist government's generally sound economic policies.

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But Peru, until now, has seldom come up as a country of the future. Most often, it has been associated with political scandals, natural disasters and political uncertainty.

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Last year's elections had pitted former President Alan García, whose irresponsible populism had ruined the country during his 1985-90 term, and Ollanta Humala, a leftist former military officer who was publicly backed by Venezuela's narcissist-Leninist leader Hugo Chávez. When Garcia won by a thin margin, Peru's business community welcomed his victory as the lesser of two evils.

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''Making predictions for the next 20 years is somewhat risky, but I would look at countries like Peru,'' Giugale said in the soon-to-be-aired Oppenheimer Presenta television interview. [Excerpts can be seen now at www.MiamiHerald.com/americas].

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''The countries that will succeed are those that find the right balance between economic efficiency and social solidarity,'' he said. ''That's because countries that follow that middle-of-the-road path are the ones that will have the most political feasibility to get things done.''

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Giugale, who cited Colombia as another country that may surprise everybody for the better in coming years, especially if it gets its free trade agreement with the United States approved by the U.S. Congress, said Peru is already showing pretty impressive growth figures. Consider:

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• Peru's economy has been growing at about 6 percent a year for the past six years, a longer period of steady growth than most countries in the region. The United Nations Economic Commission for Latin America is projecting a 7.3 percent growth for 2007, and a 6 percent increase for 2008.

• Poverty has fallen from 54 percent of the population in 2001 to about 44 percent, according to official figures.

• Inflation is at about 2.8 percent, one of the lowest rates in the region.

• Exports have risen at an average annual rate of 24 percent since 2001, including an 18 percent annual rise in nontraditional exports, mostly agricultural goods and textiles.

• Foreign direct investment has soared from $810 million in 2000 to $3.5 billion last year.

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My opinion: Peru has a long way to go, especially when it comes to competing in the global economy. Just Wednesday, the World Economic Forum's new ranking of the world's most competitive economies ranked Peru 86th among 121 countries, down eight places from its spot last year.

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But people who are optimistic about Peru in the long run may be right. García has had the wisdom to continue the sound economic policies of his predecessor, Alejandro Toledo, who despite his low popularity set the stage for long-term economic growth and a reduction of poverty.

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This is no small achievement in Latin America, a region long characterized by boom and bust cycles where many presidents love to proclaim themselves founding fathers of supposedly new and ''revolutionary'' economic models -- like we are now seeing in Venezuela, Bolivia and Ecuador -- that help them gain absolute powers, but most often at the cost of destroying their countries' economies and increasing poverty in the long run.

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Chile, and most recently Brazil, have opened a new chapter in Latin America's modern history: They are leftist-ruled countries that pursue responsible economic policies, attracting investments and creating the base for long-term growth. Peru is a welcome addition, and it may indeed become a star economy in the not-so-distant future.

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Andres Oppenheimer
aoppenheimer@herald.com

Helping former street kids in Lima, Peru

Peruvian government takes drastic measures to ensure 2007 census success

Tomorrow, Sunday 21st October, a census will be carried out countrywide in Peru. Its purpose is to identify and gain better knowledge of the population distribution and their level of education, birth and infant mortality rates, housing and the materials used for construction and problem areas, such as towns with no access to running water, drainage or electricity. The information gathered will help to improve the country’s social aid programmes, hopefully meaning that more support will reach the areas where it is most needed.

Therefore, in part, this is very good news. However, in order to carry out the census, the government has issued a complete ban of all forms of transport nationwide! The ban will last from 8am to 6pm, meaning that between those hours there will be absolutely no buses, taxis, private cars or other forms of transport allowed on the road. People found outside will be asked to return home until 6pm. The same happened in 1993, resulting in thousands of people across the country being arrested and fined, simply for leaving their homes! Fortunately since then it has been agreed that this is actually against the law and against the right to freedom, so this time the authorities do not have the power to arrest or fine anyone, but they will still “recommend” people return home.

The entire country being ordered to stay shut in their homes all day just for a census seems absurd to me, and probably does to most other Westerners too. Other countries seem to manage to complete their census without having to shut the entire population inside! But quite aside from it being absurd, it is also preventing many Pervians from going to work. Most people in the West think of Sunday as a day of rest, but in Peru it is just one more working day for the vast majority of people. They need to work 7 days a week in order to bring in enough money for their families; the idea of a day off is a luxury. So for these people the census is a loss of income, perhaps meaning that their children go hungry that day.

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On the other hand, some Peruvians have explained to me that due to the lack of cooperation amongst the people, the results of the national census have not shown an acurate reflection of the reality. This in turn, has meant less effective social aid programmes. In order to combat this non-cooperation and improve aid programmes, the government has had to take some drastic measures. I’d be interested to know what other people think about this issue. Please feel free to leave comments on this blog entry.

Falling exchange rates and rising prices cause alarm across Peru

The Dollar to Nuevo Sol (local Peruvian currency) exchange rate has crashed from 3.15 to 2.96 in the space of days. This means that for every $100 exchanged, people are receiving 19 Nuevo Soles fewer - the equivalent of 19 bus fares or about 4 average restaurant meals. This is extremely worrying for many local businesses who hold bank accounts in dollars and citizens whose monthly wages are paid in dollars.

The Peruvian government recently stated that the dollar has devalued worldwide, not just in Peru, and that therefore there is no reason for concern. This has done little to calm the Peruvian people however; in the 1980’s the current President, Alan Garcia, froze all bank accounts held in dollars!

At the same time, prices are beginning to rise – bread has almost doubled in price over the last few months and other basic food stuffs, such as eggs, have gone up too. What with Alan Garcia back as President, people are worried that they will suffer again the terrible hyperinflation of his 1980’s government, which was worse than that of post Nazi Germany in the late 40’s. People are scared for their savings, their livelihoods and their future.

The devaluation of the dollar and rise in prices has affected The Colour of Hope too – it means that for the near future we will need to spend more to achieve our aims. It also means that the young people we help are even more in need of aid than before – rising prices and falling exchange rates are worrying enough for those who are lucky enough to have jobs; for the unemployed they’re devastating.