TEACHERS are the BACKBONE to EDUCATE GIRLS in Peru

After just 3 months back in the classroom, CW is back to normal!   

It's been three months since CW girls and teachers stepped back into a physical classroom. We didn't know what to expect after 2 years of home school; we are relieved to see how responsible our girls have become in two years. All are wearing their masks indoors and sometimes outdoors understanding that we must still take care. Even then they have all easily returned to the normal school flow with their friends and teachers. Gratefully,  all student grade levels have caught up to where they would be normally now had they not been in home-school the last 2 years. The CW team is attentive, listening and watching girls for any signs of a disruptive home life during home-school to assure all girls get any help they might need. Thank you all for your support. CW teachers always provide one-on-one tutoring as needed, to prevent a student from sliding slowing backwards - with success. Our teachers tell us how wonderful they feel to be back in their classrooms watching the girls demonstrate their joy with easy laughter and playfulness once again, while eager to learn.
 
Parents continue to support the school with their physical labor
Assistant Director, Gloria, led the parents meeting the first week of school to plan the ways they can help CW school get up and running again. Mostly farmers, parents have been planting and harvesting whatever we can grow on the school grounds for the school meal program for the last 20 years. Potatoes were planted in early Jan, but due to the heavy rains that threatened to ruin our crop, they harvested early; we have piles of potatoes albeit a little smaller this year due to the shorter season. They will plant again soon to grow another vegetable crop. The skyrocketing cost of food due to cost of gas to transport food staples to Cusco from Lima has hit our families the hardest. Work for them is finally improving with day jobs opening up again. But most still barely get by.

The cost of basics has hit everyone in Peru and our teachers, cook and all round handy-man and school bus driver - all are hit particularly hard. What ever we grow at the school is a big help. We have also increased the wages of our team to help them deal with the cost of food - a third of our teachers are single mothers. 

Returning students
Not all students have returned to the school - so far
The few students who left Cusco with their families during the worst of Covid to return to the high andes where they have family farming to feed them, have still not returned. Cusco work is picking up and we hope to see them returning soon.

The ever changing Peruvian school requirements:
We still cannot restart our daily dining in-cafeteria meals for the girls, even in shifts, due to crowding and covid worries. However, we are now allowed to prepare in our kitchen the daily meal and delivery them to each classroom, for each girl, in individual tupperware type plastic containers to their individual desks, separated several feet from each other. We are still providing the nutritional daily food that is lacking in most of our homes due to poverty. Our emergency food program ended with the return of the school meals. Malnutrition is a constant concern and why we created our daily school meal program when we build the CW school that included a big kitchen and dining room. Student health has greatly improved.

The Maria School
Ruth returned from her California visit recharged and with new plans on how and when to open the tuition-based Maria school, timing it with an improved Cusco economy.  

A change of scenery and our leadership brainstorming always opens us up to new ideas. The best way to attract parents/students is to advertise as Cusco recovers economically from covid. The timing has just not been right so far; by the end of this year and good advertising that we are open for enrollment - it will be the right time.

And a few photos for you to enjoy. “A picture speaks a thousand words” 
*CW celebrated Kindergarten School Day on the patio.The youngest girls at the school are honored for being the most enthusiastic at the CW school showing off their eagerness to learn. Classroom study is back
*Parents show up to represent their daughters education on the patio
*Lunch containers wait on the teachers desk to deliver.
*We proudly present our teachers and one cook here
* The Maria School is ready here in Green color.

Many blessings to us all for a brighter, pandemic free new reality.

                    PLEASE DONATE

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

                     THANK YOU

 Chicuchas Wasi School for Girls are SO HAPPY TO BE BACK! 

Your support has made the difference!
 

CW's future when the (tuition-based ) 'Maria Tuition School' classes are filled, will be self-supporting. CoVid upset our plans to open the Maria school in 2020, but we are grateful that our CW large extended family is well. We plan to begin enrolling new students late in 2022 as soon as parents are ready and covid controlled. 

NOTE: Thank you for still 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 at the university today. 

Read the CW STORY
"JUMP ON THE LOVE TRAIN"
a fundraiser to EDUCATE GIRLS
HTTP://WWW.chicuchaswasi.org/book/
100% of the proceeds go to the school
Thank you

Links:

• Official Chicuchas Wasi website

The latest Peruvian school requirements:

All reopened schools in Peru are forbidden to serve food to students, per the ministry of health and ministry of education. Our girls come from the poor rural community with work scarcity and lack adequate food at home. After 2 years in lock-down, malnutrition is again showing up in our girls. Therefore, CW is repeating the same emergency packs of food basics that families can cook at home, same we provided the last 2 years of the Pandemic. Ruth is also providing hot oatmeal upon arrival to school in cups to the classroom (under the Ministry radar) and keeping the distance between girls. It is bitter cold as winter arrives in Cusco.

This year with few jobs available to parents who do not earn enough to feed families- this problem is now a crisis. The rise in gas costs and the related rising cost of food has worsened our family food shortages. Example is the cost of bread in Cusco: 1 sole (1 sol=$ 0.26020usd) would buy 5 bread rolls, now only buys 2-3. A small whole chicken is totally unaffordable in Cusco today costing approx. Peruvian Sol 32.61875 = $8.50 usd each. (Conversion rate today is $1 USD = 3.8375 PEN sols and changes daily.)

This crisis not only affects the students and their families but also our team of teacher’s (1/3 are single mothers) ability to feed their families. Because of this we must think of the girls, parents and CW team and help them get through this food crisis and potential resulting health decline. CW teacher’s pay is being increased.

Please DONATE on link below to keep quality education available to poor girls.

Http://www.chicuchaswasi.org

Ruth’s recent visit to California allowed for many in depth discussions between Ruth and I of the post pandemic return to CW in-class education, and the subtle changes teachers are noting in the girls after 2 years of home school. Really happy to be again in the classroom, teachers are focused on the return to classroom education and the emotional changes in our girls. Gratefully CW girls are already back to a near normal routine. Our teachers are alert to problems that our families might have had in crowded living situations the last 2 years. They recognize the need for extra patience, to watch and listen to each girl share home time, shower them with much love, and to watch and try to resolve the frustrations, pain, and home realities of each child. Slowly after 2 weeks, our girls are smiling, laughing again and deepening the teacher/student trust. 

Ruth tells me that all are very happy to see each other, share stories and when a girl is too quiet with no smiles - their eyes tell a bigger story. The team will get to the bottom of those stories. For CW team, this is the stimulus to keep plowing ahead.

Exciting new teacher: With joy and much pride, we celebrate FlorDina, graduate from CW’s first graduation in 2013, with much personal effort to rise above her many family difficulties, Flordina has pushed ahead to study for a career in Education and finally graduated last December from a Cusco teacher’s credential program. This school year (post covid), Flordina has returned to CW once again, but this time for her primary grade level teacher practice. Her dream was to become a teacher at CW school – CW celebrates her success and example for other girls with great pride.

The Maria School: CW business plan to support the (tuition free) Chicuchas Wasi School and at the same time the (tuition based) Maria School with the tuition income that is generated, now that schools are allowed to open again. This has been the focus of much of Ruth and my CW work in California the last 2 weeks. The best way to attract parents/students is to carefully publicize it after covid. In spite of the Ministries chaotic 2022 school opening, we plan a quality co-ed school with focus on preparing students for the best Universities down the road. Ruth is back in Cusco today actually working on the best way to attract parents to our school with radio, TV and a billboard ads. We have much to lure them to us, namely the 25year successes of CW school, our values and empowerment style of education. Parents are understandably still worried about the Cusco economy and slow recovery and fear that Covid will return and put their children at risk. Tourism is back and international travelers have returned to visit Machu Picchu and the city of Cusco. The main Cusco economy, tourism is already making a big difference with the city economy with new business and job security for everyone. The Maria school will be popular and is needed but parents still have a wait and see approach to signing a contract for their child’s education. As children return to school and remain healthy this will open the doors quickly to our Co-Ed school Maria.

Here are a few photos for you to enjoy. “A picture speaks a thousand words”

Many blessings to us all for a brighter, pandemic free new reality.

Report by:

Rae Lewis, CW founder 1987, President in California

Ruth Uribe, CW school co-founder 1997, President in Cusco, Peru

Http://www.chicuchaswasi.org

Email: Chicuchas_wasi@sonic.net 

Links:

• Official website of ChicuchasWasi covers 35 years