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