Villa El Salvador

One of the other volunteers, who works in the community theatre CIJAC, took me on a tour of Villa El Salvador. It was pretty awesome. I’m not going to lie. I got to watch one of their rehearsals for the 40^th Anniversary celebration. Then a few weeks later I returned to watch the show and to take pictures.

The show was based on the history of Villa El Salvador. It showed how the people came from all over Peru to found their own community, how they worked together to build their houses and to defend the
land that they claimed as their own, how they received documentation for their land claims and how they came together as a community. The actors wore costumes in styles from all over Peru. It was interesting to watch the intersecting of
cultures.

Villa El Salvador has attracted attention in the International Development community for its strong political leadership. Community leaders from the beginning fought for education and sustainable
economic development. The results of which are obvious. Now Villa El Salvador has a manufacturing industry which makes clothes, furniture and other products that feed into the large department stores in the more prosperous parts of Lima. Their main commercial street also sells these products for lower prices!

Villa El Salvador also has a community radio and television station. I got a chance to talk to one of the organisers of the radio station on my personal tour. He told me that they have community talk radio in the mornings and early evenings – the rest of the time they play music. The television station is mostly local news shows but they are hoping todevelop some children’s shows in the near future. It’s so important in political and economic development for a community to have a method of communication where they can share the news and events that are happening in the community.

Mil gracias to my coworker for showing me this impressive community.

Manuela Ramos

(Photo credit: Swamy DeLeon, CUSO-VSO Volunteer)

My roomie works in one of the CUSO-VSO Peru partner organisations called Manuela Ramos so I popped by for a visit! They are a women's organisation that works all over Peru fighting for women's rights. Manuela Ramos has quite a reputation as a feminist organisation which is great. They certainly are a lot more liberal than any other group I've visited. For example one woman heard us say that we lived together and assumed we were lesbians. Even though we're not lesbians I loved that that was her first thought and that it was said without judgement. Unfortunately, most of Peru deals with a lot of discrimination based on sexual orientation, sex and race which is why the liberal attitude at Manuela was a breath of fresh air.

I got a bit of a tour of Manuela including the store where they sell handicrafts. I walked away with four stuffed animals for my future nieces/nephews who will be arriving this summer. They are just the cutest things ever!! I couldn't resist!! You can see the catalogue online in English here including the teddy bears and bunnies that I bought: http://www.casadelamujerartesana.com/eng/index.html

IDL

I went to for lunch at one of the other CUSO-VSO partner organisations on Tuesday called IDL. They are situated in this house with an office building attached to it. Five floors of lawyers, reporters, radio announcers and admin staff all working towards defending human rights in Peru. There was a definite buzz in the office in the aftermath of the elections. Keiko Fujimori and Ollanta Humala will be entering the next round of elections since neither of them won enough votes (50%+) to win outright. Fujimori is the daughter of the former dictator/president of Peru who is now in jail for human rights violations, and Humala is a relative unknown who won the majority of the seats in rural Peru. It's going to be interesting to see who wins the second round because regardless it will mean some serious changes in Peru.

Two of the CUSO-VSO volunteers work there. One is involved directly in defending human rights and Annie, who gave me the tour, is writing for their newspaper and managing their twitter feed. Fascinating work!

Here's IDL's website http://www.idl.org.pe/

Elections!

Yesterday Peru held their first round of elections. The politicians in the running include the daughter of the former dictator, an ex-president and a host of other lesser known candidates. Check out the BBC break down of the election here.

As the results come in the second and third place winners are still not clear. I think they have until tomorrow to officially announce the winner.

One thing was clear though that throughout the election the people that I've met have been engaged in politics to the extent I've never seen before in Canada. My coworkers constantly talk about the election in the lunch room and almost everyone I meet from taxi drivers to students in my dance class wants to offer their political opinion to anyone who will listen. It's fascinating. The attitude is mostly that the individual has to choose the best candidate out of a bad lot. Mario Vargas Llosa likens the possiblity of having to chose between Keiko, the dictator's daughter, and Ollanta, a left-wing politician, like having to chose between AIDS and cancer.

Although I would never liken Harper to AIDS, I think it's a great lesson for the upcoming Canadian election. If we want more young people to be involved in politics - why not talk about it? Fight voter apathy through lunch room conversations and elevator speeches!

Humboldt

In my spanish class we're reading a book of short biographies related to people who have influenced Peru over the past few centuries. The first story was about a young German named Alexander von Humboldt. In 1818, Humboldt lived in Peru for 5 months. During that time he managed to completely change the understanding of the currents in and around the Peruvian coast (he even has a current named after him), discovered uses for guano (a specific kind of bird poop) as fertilizer, contributed to research on the flora and fauna of the Andean and Amazonian regions, and documented what the social life was like here at the time. I found this completely shocking since I've now been here for almost 5 months and I still have not found many uses for the guano that I encounter in my day to day life. The message in the story was that he was able to accomplish all of this because he made an effort to document the things that he observed. This got me thinking of all the things I observe that I don´t write about and Humboldt inspired me to write more. Thus I will be making more of an effort to entice my readers with my observations of Lima, Limeño culture and the life of an ex-pat. Don´t worry I have no illusions of grandeur that someone will name a current after me!

CUSO-VSO's Youth Employment Strategy

March 28th, 2011, CUSO-VSO and Kallpa one of the local partners held a conference for youth employment centres in Peru in Bolivia. This was a very special event because it celebrated the work that CUSO-VSO is doing in Bolivia and Peru in the area of Youth Employment.

Over half of the volunteers with CUSO-VSO in Peru are a part of Kallpa. The Centro de Jovenes y Empleo - CJE is one way that Kallpa is contributing to the development of youth. The CJE provides opportunities for young people to access job-based resources and enhance their capacities to find a job or to become self-employed. Many of the CUSO-VSO folk work in this area giving workshops and developing programs.

The CJE's are based on a concept from a Canadian organisation called Carrefour Jeunesse-Emploi de l'Outaouais in Gatineau, Quebec. Strangely I came across this organisation when doing some research on volunteer centres in Canada for Oxfam Canada before I came to Peru but I didn't put two and two together until I got here. Anyhoo, this partnership has been growing for a few years now. The youth employment centre in Gatineau is involved in sharing information and best practices with the CJE's here in Peru and in La Paz, Bolivia. All of the organisations are working right not to help support the growth of a new centre in Santa Cruz, Bolivia where CUSO-VSO recently sent a South-South volunteer from the CJE in Peru to help develop their programs.

It's amazing to observe the transfer of information and skills that is taking place between Peru and Bolivia thanks to the leadership at both CUSO-VSO and Kallpa.

Check out this YouTube video from CUSO-VSO about it the CJE in San Juan de Miraflores, Lima! No seriously, click here! It’s got English subtitles!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rywjhjovUq0

Partner visits

One of the great things about being an international volunteer is the opportunity to enjoy getting out into the community and visiting the projects. Although some volunteers have the opportunity to work directly with the population my jobs in International Development have always been based in the institution. Thus, these opportunities when they arise are very exciting for me! Right now since we're in the training season (when the students aren't in school) I've been visiting partners about once a week!

Last week CAPLAB put on a workshop on how to use the big fancy sewing machines with the help of a local sewing machine store called Maquicentro. One of CAPLAB's roles is to provide equipment for technical colleges (CETPRO's) based on their individual needs. In some CETPRO's that we support that means providing sewing machines for courses in tailoring and dressmaking. So CAPLAB has had a relationship with Maquicentro as a consumer for our projects. Then, out of the blue, Maquicentro approaches us with this workshop on how to use the industrial machines that do embroidery and detail work so that our teachers will be able to teach these skills better. I thought it was a great example of how industries can use their skills and abilities to help the local community.

I have some how become the staff photographer... which I have to say I'm pretty happy with this role! It gives me the opportunity to see the world from the outside and at the same time have an excuse to interact with the students, facilitators and sponsors.

So here's a link to our picasa photo album of the event. https://picasaweb.google.com/ongcaplab/ManejoYAcondicionamientoDeAditamentos#