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