By Simon Hare | Development Director, Globalteer, parent charity
Hola from Oropesa!
It has been a really busy few weeks but the hard work and all your support is really paying off and we've got lots of good news to report - Here is just some of it!
Our New English Programme is starting to take shape
We wrote last month about the exciting news of our grant from the Latin American Travel Association (LATA) Foundation to overhaul Picaflor’s English teaching programme. Well this month, we are delighted to be able to report on the progress we’ve already made:
Firstly, we assessed our students’ level of English to make sure that we were investing in the right level of books. Next, we went on the hunt and managed to find a local bookstore in Cusco that stocked all the English books we needed – up until now we had only been able to find the books online which would have meant a delay and extra delivery costs to us! And finally, as we were buying in bulk we managed to negotiate a very generous discount.
This would be great news any day of the week but we are also thankful to LATA who agreed to allow us to spend the savings on additional classroom materials and recruiting an assistant to help our teacher Luz implement the new programme!
So, if you know anyone with solid teaching experience or someone with good Spanish who wants to break into teaching – then please point them in our direction! Full details of the role can be found here. We are very excited about how much this new programme is going to help our kids get a step up on the education ladder!
Overwhelmed by fundraising!
For the last few weeks friends and staff of Picaflor House have been going to some extraordinary lengths to raise money to help cover our running costs. Here in Peru our team of Laura, Chris, Becca, Candice and Melissa undertook 24 crazy challenges in 24 hours including bungee jumping, hiking up mountains to watch both sunrise and sunset and sampling some of the more acquired delights of Peruvian cuisine such as sheep’s head broth, pickled snake and chicken’s feet salad!
In the UK a team of long-term supporters took part in a 50 mile walk to raise money for Picaflor and back in Peru, Picaflor’s founders Jim Elliott and his wife Camila have just started a 20km in 20 days swimathon along with their two young children.
Between us the campaign has already raised over £5,000/$7,000 and donations are still coming in every day!
Two more really great reasons to make a donation to Picaflor House.
If anyone is thinking about making a new donation to Picaflor House there are two really good reasons to go for it!
Please feel free to let your friends know about these two great opportunities too.
In the pipeline...
We have lots of exciting plans and ideas at Picaflor and once we have all our regular costs covered we can focus on improving and expanding what Picaflor House offers even further. Building on the success of the healthy snack programme which was funded by Choi, a very generous former volunteer, we are now looking at the possibility of providing lunch for the children at Picaflor House.
Not only would this mean that the children receive a healthy and balanced meal at lunch time, it would also mean they don’t need to walk home after state school for lunch and then back into Oropesa for lessons at Picaflor. This would make life much easier for the kids and greatly reduce the risk of their being late and missing lessons! We’ll let you know how plans are going so watch this space...
On behalf of the children and staff at Picaflor, Thank you for your continued support and we look forward to bringing you more good news next month!
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