By Diana Rae Lewis | Founder and President
This week, CW has especially good news for you :
FIRST: All schools just celebrated the opening of the 2023 Peruvian school year. Our CW girls (110-120 now) are happily back in school again, all dressed up their signature red school uniforms.
SECOND: School parents met last week to agree on plans for a little needed TLC, like patching the worn areas on walls of the school with fresh paint; paint individual wooden desks in need of a lift. Our parents organized the work parties and assigned the groups to do the work (see image of father with megaphone), and then got busy.
THIRD: Our parents manage and are skilled in agriculture and several years ago they cultivated the school grounds to grow the food for the school daily meal program for their daughters. The harvest will take another month and has provided a large harvest for our kitchen in the past.
FORTH: The biggest surprise is that the Ministry of Education is being investigated by Congress for misuse of funds. Several public school buildings will now close for non-use and be repurposed. The 65 desks, chairs, cabinets, teacher desks, and 11 computers must be donated to an approved school. Our 35 year CW member Efrain, is an active board member today, He found all the contacts and helped Ruth acquire all the furniture for our CW org schools. It took 3 large trucks to haul all the furniture to the school, happy happy and smiling all the way.
In Peru, politics really never takes a vacation.
Our school bus is busy every am to pick up and after school to return home 110 plus energetic girls to school every day now and away from the protests. The military stroll the streets, mostly empty with small protests around the center of Cusco. Citizens can go to work or buy groceries and turn home. Tourism is quiet - only local tourists from Peru venture to Machu Picchu for now. Government offices are open and employees show up, but do nothing waiting for a new presidental election to happen.
Reality for Ruth and team:
The Maria School has been ready to enroll primary grade boys and girls for more than 2 years. However, 2 yrs of covid at-home school, political strikes and angry protests after the impeachment of a new president, effectively has eliminated a functional Ministry of Education. The renewal of the approved formal permissions (resubmitted 3 months ago) for Maria are still not signed. Ruth shows up every am at the Min. of Ed hoping to retrieve the signed renewal by the new administrator and is told he is absent-again. Ruth is confident that the will receive this signed renewal and I pray it is so.
Meanwhile Ruth is talking to a list of parents seeking to have their children study at our private tuition-based Maria school asap. Peruvians have had 6 presidents in 6 years, so they understand the political chaos of the moment and why public schools are rated so low - they want their children in a quality private school. You remember that our tuition-based Maria school will financially support both Maria and the CW school for girls for a long successful future going forward and won't be affected by the political hiccoughs.
Normal business in Cusco has been at a standstill since tourism is slow until a new president is elected in Peru. The main economy in Cusco is tourism and therefore the protests and military presence should not last much longer. Our teachers, admin team and students are all safe and have had too much experience navigating the streets safely during a lock-down. The market image shows the market crowd allowed to food shop and Ruth and Gloria are shoping.
PLEASE DONATE
https://www.globalgiving.org/projects/educate-120-poor-girls-in-cusco-for-economic-survival/ THANK YOU
THANKS TO YOU - our supporters - we have kept our school for girls functioning during 2022 and now in 2023. All salaries paid, gas in the school bus and the daily hot meal program filling the tummies of our girls.
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By Diana Rae Lewis | Founder and President
By Diana Rae Lewis | Founder and President
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