TEACHERS are the BACKBONE to EDUCATE GIRLS in Peru

THE FABULOUS Maria School news:

Monday, our Dynamo CW Administrator Ruth (Pictured here) who has been pounding on the Cusco Ministry of Education office door DAILY for several months, finally spoke to the new boss, and to avoid more delays, she drove him and his 4 gov. officials to our Maria school to see how it more than meets the state requirements and must open. He agreed and signed the document of Permission to open the school. Official school year opened on March 1, 2023. After 3 years of lock-down for Covid and presidential impeachment and more political strikes and unrest – we can now enroll our first students, albeit a month late this school year. Patience and persistence paid off.
 
NOW (though our registration is late) we have new publicity to attract parents to our private tuition school to best prepare their children for national and international universities. However, once again CW is challenged to leap over new obstacls to register students already 3 weeks past deadline now in other schools. We hope to re-register students in our Tuition-based Maria school. Ruth and team, friends, her family and others who have been calling and asking when? Are busy contacting the parents and hope they will switch to our Maria school.

Political mood today: the military, their rifles and water tanks have left the city of Cusco and people are now allowed to leave their homes for work, shopping and food. Children can calmly go to school. The chaos has calmed down, though no new election is scheduled to elect another President. Peruvian citizens are accustomed to no decent leadership - 6 presidents in 6 years tells the story.

Tourism is the main economic driver of this ancient historic Incan city and there are few tourists in Cusco still. Our long-term CW member, Efrain an active CW board member says that most countries have a travel warning posted on their websites and his tour business has a bare trickle of travelers, but number growing. The shops are open as is Machu Picchu waiting for tourists again. Tourists are starting to come again.

Our Chicuchas Wasi tuition-free school for poor girls reopened March 1. After the last few years studying mostly home school, our 110+ girls are really happy to be back in their classrooms with their friends. The CW Alumnae girls trickle in here and there to talk to their old teachers and admin. and often to receive advice.
 
START-UP FUNDS ARE REALLY NEEDED NOW to pay the 3 teachers (3 grades) to jump start our tuition-based college prep Maria School. As we fill the grades the tuition income will pay the teachers and grow as enrollment and to eventually pay for the operating budget for both, the CW tuition free Girls school and the tuition-based Maria school.                           
                          PLEASE DONATE 

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

Gloria Vera is the Maria school Director and has been assist. director under Ruth for 25 years and ready to take on this position. Ruth will be the administrator of both schools and remain Director for the CW girl’s school.

Thank you all for standing with us and the CW students as we together climbed over the hurdles of the last 3 years. We have the best teachers and CW team who have become incredibly empowered women, really impressing us all with their united solidarity to confront the many obstacles that we have had. We expect to achieve the same success at the Maria School. Several CW lead teachers have offered to help start up the Maria School with their leadership skills to prepare our new teachers in our empowerment based style of education.

Please donate to this transition period that has finally arrived. With your financial support we will get this school year off and running to the successful long term academic program ONLY CW provides in Cusco. We will be financially self-sufficient to provide quality longevity education for Cusco children.

Maria School is a business plan to support CW school for girls:  Soon we will generate good income to support the Maria school as well as the Chicuchas Wasi school for girls as it reaches full student enrollment. 

Cusco parents who demand quality private school education for their college bound children, plan to educate them at very competitive foreign and national universities. We really need your donations for this start-up move for longevity success in Peru. This is the perfect business for CW.org as the demand is high here. Covid permanently closed down many private schools that were functioning unregulated in small rented buildings before Covid. The CW Maria school is a beautiful modern and colorful primary school built to deliver quality education and welcomed by the Ministry of Education.

Meanwhile please help us keep the CW girls school open. Until the Maria School enrollment is generating enough income, we will still need your support to maintain the Chicuchas Wasi School for girls that we continue to deliver at no charge to our poor families. Please see PIE and donate. Thank you so much for the gift of education for girls. See images of CW Girls school and the new Maria School

NOTE: Thank you all for hanging in there with us. We have a little way to go yet but the impact of our work is self evident in the success of our girls...some are at the university today. 

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

Links:

• Official Chicuchas Wasi Org. website

 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. The prior week we had a lot of work to do.

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/send-disadvantaged-rural-girls-to-school-in-peru/
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. 

Links:

• Official website of ChicuchasWasi covers 32 years