Restore Health in Cerro de Pasco

We have just came back from Cerro de Pasco.

These weeks were so much intense and constructive for all of us.

After a bad acclimation step at 4500 meters above sea level, we started soon the new study beginning with children’s hair sample in the municipality of Paraghsa, the most affected site here in the Simon Bolivar District, in Pasco, the andean region.

We sampled 81 childrens’s hair between 5-14 years old, who are the most vulnerable age range to heavy metals exposition. We will analyze heavy metals concentration in it: heavy metals are neurotoxic, carcinogenic, teratogenic and obviously toxic for our body, and for all living beings.

Paragha is surrounded by mountains of mining waste that are without  any type of isolation, so the contaminated dusts are everywhere and people who live 10 meters far from these high mountains are exposed 24 h a day to these contaminants. These polluttants pass through the soil into the subsoil and to the under water reserve that were exploted by mining activities too. So the water of this town is undrinkable  and the use is reduced at 1 hour a day!

Here in Cerro de Pasco multiple human rights are violated every day: human right to water, to education, to health, to live in clean environmental, to property, to information… simply it’s not respected the human right to LIFE!

Heavy metals make people sick and they kill them. Here the Cerro SAC company (ex Volcan company) is making a real environmental crime: we are talking of a genocide carried out by more than 50 years.

This territory is bumbarded by a lot of mines: everywhere you go, you find a mine in a radius of 10 Km.

Parallel to the health study we are sampling water of most affected rivers basins, some lakes transformed in mining waste desposals and tap water, always to detect heavy metals levels and to understand the enviornmental quality.

With your help we are carring out the chemical analysis and legal actions to move the city to a healthy site and asking to mining company to apply social responsability and reduce mining waste exposition to inhabitants.

We thank you a lot for your great and generous support. Above all who are thanking all of you are Paraghsa children and Pasco population!!