Higher Education for 90 Andean Young People

This year, we welcomed 28 young people to our Pathways Programme, the first stage of our Transitions Project. Over the course of their final year at secondary school, the young people receive academic support, mentorship and vocational orientation from Amantani. It is an important time for these 17 and 18-year-olds, as they begin to make big decisions about their next steps in life.

On the first day of the residential programme in July, the secondary school students arrived with their parents at our organisation’s campus in the rural Andean community of Ccorca. They met their peers and got settled in, then began a full agenda of workshops and activities. When their parents returned to pick them up two weeks later, they were excited to share all they had learned about healthy relationships, cultural identity, career goals and more.

For Leonel, the opportunity to perform poetry in Quechua to his peers made him feel proud of his culture and heritage. After receiving career guidance from Amantani’s tutors, he is now even more convinced about becoming a Civil Engineer so that he can contribute to his community, increasing its services while also protecting its history and traditions.

Yamileth comments, “What I most enjoyed about the Pathways Programme during these two weeks was learning about cultural identity. In our rural communities, we are losing our practices, traditions and language and some young people are scared to speak Quechua when they go to Cusco. We shouldn’t be embarrassed about speaking our language.”

Through poster-making, painting, dancing, improvisation, meditation and lots of group work, the Pathways Programme participants discussed caring for each other in their communities, families and personal relationships.

For Maria Matilde, self-love was an important theme. She shared, “Together, we talked about how to value, protect and take care of ourselves and establish healthy limits in our relationships.”

The cohort will now continue to the Amantani Academy before starting their studies in higher and further education institutes in Cusco at the beginning of 2024. Most of them are the first in their families to pursue an education beyond secondary school and wouldn’t be able to embark upon this journey without Amantani scholarships and support. We are so excited to see what they will achieve, as they become the future teachers, nurses, psychologists and engineers of their rural indigenous communities.