TEACHERS are the BACKBONE to EDUCATE GIRLS in Peru

Greetings Friends! 

School History - Chicuchas Wasi (CW) was founded by me in 1987 as an emergency shelter for the abandoned children living on the streets of Cusco. I was a 40 years old nurse alone and soon needed help. Ruth Uribe, a 25 yr old Peruvian public school teacher volunteered on weekends to help manage the 20 resident children. She and I quickly realized that to raise the quality of life for children living on the edge we needed to educate the girls with skills for economic survival and who too often become young mothers. The plan developed and together Rae and Ruth co-founded the CW School for girls. We have come a long way since then! Today CW is a primary school that is free to families of underserved indigenous girls. We have 100 girls enrolled who are safely bused to school every day from their rural locations. More often than not, our girls have very little food at home and come to school half asleep and hungry. We provided a daily nutritional meal and the girls began to thrive. Before 1987, girls rarely attended public school due to the preference of educating boys and leaving the domestic chores to the girls. Girls often sold herbal tea on a nearby corner, for pennies, or anything else that would bring in some money. The inability to read or write was a huge disadvantage. Today, all of our students can read and write by first grade. Our teaching style includes using theater to act out history and Andean culture, something the entire student body enjoys and participates in. Parents are also invited to attend these presentations and enjoy learning about their early history.

Our Past Struggles - In the beginning, we struggled to convince parents of the value of educating girls. Ruth is from Cusco and was excellent at recruiting students and knew just where to find them - like under the tables while their mothers sold items in the open market. I traveled back and forth to my home town in California and created a board of working directors to plan fundraisers like travel with CW to Cusco and Machu Picchu to raise funds and collected clothing for CW girls. My contacts and business skills would help raise the funds to build a school to last for many generations. Today our parents are hands-on participants in the education of their daughters by attending to the maintenance of the school, such as painting classroom doors and performing other minor repairs. Since it’s an agricultural community, they also help prepare the soil for planting potatoes, squash, corn, quinoa and cultivate the land that provides vegetables for our lunch program. It was soon apparent that to raise funds build our school we needed a full time fundraiser and grant writer. That was to be me. The years flew by. We (CA Board and CW school team) worked hard but also had fun.

Our Successes - We have had many wins! Most of our alumnae have completed high school, some attend a trade school and others study at the university. One girl had a dream of becoming a teacher, like Ruth, and worked hard to achieve that goal. I’m happy to announce that today she is part of CW’s teaching staff! We are fortunate to have CW girls for 8 years. Our teachers are committed to instilling confidence and encouraging our girls out of the shadows to become confident community leaders. Among the many skills CW girls learn is how to vote in national elections. Not only that, but they teach their parents and family members how to vote as well. CW girls have found their voices and use them courageously to educate their communities about conserving water and picking up garbage.  

Fundraising - I returned to California 20 years ago to be near my family and my grandkids and to focus on fundraising while still managing the administrative needs of CW.  The community in Sonoma, as well as other fundraising groups, have helped us create a school library, a computer lab and, more recently, payed for a Satellite antenna for CW internet connection. This last item was donated by Antoine, a member of the Sonoma Rotary Club. Thank you Sonoma Rotary and Antoine! Efrain Valles, a local Cusco tour guide and 30 year member and supporter of CW convinced the Cusco Rotary to fund the installation of the antennae for the school. He also uses his tour guiding business to bring tourists to the school so they can see first-hand how their donations are impacting the lives of  our students and their families.

Looking Ahead - I’m not 40 anymore and I feel my role is changing at 83 today. As the years go by, my travels to Cusco are few and far between and my ability to keep up with all the things this job entails are also changing. The Board and I, along with Ruth Uribe, the director and cofounder of CW, are actively discussing a transition from the US based Board to one in Cusco. Our Board President, Greg Stubbs, a lawyer, is providing legal advice and guiding us in this transition and our nonprofit 501© 3. He is also exploring the feasibility of having the donations sent directly to the school, but the fact that the school is under the authority of the Ministry of Education and the Ministry of Justice poses a problem. We don’t want the money to go through these two entities. 

Lastly, I wanted to announce that the newsletter will be taken over by Roberta O’Neill, a friend and retired bilingual teacher who is a great supporter of CW School for Girls and it’s mission. She came to Cusco in 2017, for the school’s 30th anniversary and has also participated in a number of fundraising events. Im still here but letting go of some of the tasks 

Thank you - Thank you to GlobalGiving for supporting and funding our efforts since 2011 and thank you to all of our monthly donors who continue to support our cause and to those who have also been with us since the beginning. We are forever grateful! As always, we are blessed by the Divine Mother.

Links:

• Official Chicuchas Wasi website

Dear CW community, Thank you friends for still sticking with us all these years-some of you for the last 30 years. The times are hard for us all lately, but we must remain positive. Love to you all from the CW team here and Cusco -Rae.

Chicuchas Wasi School for girls are strengthening the Christmas spirit: with kindness, joy, gratitude, generosity and love. We show and practice these attitudes with the girls and they in turn will copy and share them with their families. Sadly many parents tend to drink too much and forget about their girls. Starting early in the morning on these rainy days our CW girls are already busy into the decorating their classrooms with holiday spirit for their beloved school. They send to you happy Christmas cheers with the decorations on the windows.  

 Feliz Navidad - CW has a fabulous group of parents who come and till the field and plant with the girls their next years potatoes crop for the school kitchen. We hope that by the 2026 harvest we will have will be a big harvest of potatos. The land needed to rest this last year before planting again now so the harvest will be big with big potatoes for 2026. Last year they didn't plant potatoes, only vegetables, that's how the land rests.
 
Tomorrow all the girls are back to school’s normal studies. To our loyal friends I am sending you these photos our teachers are taking for you.  We have visiting alumnae girls who always come at this time of the year. LOVE LOVE LOVE is all we need :-)

CW has a fabulous group of parents who come and till the field and plant with the girls their next years potatoes crop for the school kitchen. We hope that by the 2026 harvest we will have will be a big harvest of potatos. The land needed to rest this last year before planting again now so the harvest will be big with big potatoes for 2026. Last year they didn't plant potatoes, only vegetables, that's how the land rests.

The Peruvian School year will end mid Dec for summer break. Jan and Feb 2026 teachers will be preparing the 2026 class workbooks for every student and every subject. Your donations are always needed. The 2023 budget below is dated 2023 but the amount needed for 2026 school year.

https://www.globalgiving.org/projects/send-disadvantaged-rural-girls-to-school-in-peru/

Please donate on Giving Tues: Dec 2 a MATCHED global event for nonprofits.

Links:

• Official CW website