4) The slums’ urgency

1er 2000.

Most of the children of the Ciudad de los niños come from the slums of Lima, also called « pueblos jovenes ».
These slums were created around 1960 when the population of the Amazone woods emigrated to Lima running away from terrorism and poverty.
Brother Hugo Morales explained us how dramatical life could be for these families, because before the imigration, they were poor but still lived with dignity (children used to go to school, they had a roof and they could eat). They came to Lima hoping they would find better life conditions. On the contrary their situation dramatically worsen and these families are now totally miserable, homeless, without water nor electricity.
In Lima, upon two millions out of ten live without water nor electricity.
When Brother Hugo Morales told us the life of these children before coming to the Ciudad and their families are still undergoing, we decided to go in the slums in order to think of a way to help them eventually this summer. Hence we let him choose one family upon the more penniless and we went to Alexander’s house (a 19 year old boy who chose to work at the Ciudad).

It’s a family made of 2 women (mother and grandmother) and three children (the fourth is living at the orphanage). These five persons are living in a shed where the level of hygiene is indescribable. They have no water and almost no electricity.
We thus decided to start some heavy work in order to help this family.
We gave to Brother Hugo Morales an amount equivalent to 500 euros. He will manage to give it to the family as the heavy work goes along. This money will enable to remove the rocks above their house in order to avoid rockfalls, to move the house to make it reach the stairs (now you have to climb the mountain) and to install pipes for water and waste evacuation.
We agreed with the family and Hugo Morales that photos would be taken regularly and sent to us in order to follow the heavy works.

The purpose of the mission we will accomplish in July-August 2010 is to develop this project and to help the penniless families of the orphanage.
After considering this project with Brother Hugo Morales, we reached to the conclusion that with 800 euros we could realize heavy works that would afford a family to have a place to sleep with basical hygiene conditions (that is to say with water, electricity and a system allowing waste evacuation).
Along next month, we will work in straight collaboration with Hugo Morales who will be the intermediary between the association and the families. We will obviously continue to help the orphanage in parallel (cf chapter 1).