Community
Involvement

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We believe in giving back to the communities we visit, and we do it in a unique way that we think you'll really like. Many tour companies pledge to give a certain amount of sales to certain organizations, but you as customers never actually see this happening. On a Southern Crossings trip, you do! As a matter of fact, you can give it yourself. One percent of our trip price goes to a children's charity which you can visit on your trip.  (If you don't have time to stop by, we still give the money...)  So if your trip costs $2000, we'll give $20 of that to the charity when we visit. This way, you're not just passing through, you're actually making a difference!

The organization we work with in Cuzco is Peru's Challenge, at www.peruschallenge.com  A visit during your tour is a great way to spend a half day and a great way to see the "real Peru".

 

PERU'S CHALLENGE
Sustainability is key to all Peru’s Challenge’s work. We commit to working
with a community for a period of three to five years and formulate a plan
to allow us to decrease our involvement over time, and leave the community
fully self sufficient at the end of our partnership.  Working in this way,
and with your help, we’ve been able to achieve the following in the
Pumarmarca community over the last three years:

OUR RESULTS IN PUMAMARCA SCHOOL AND COMMUNITY
Community
•    Assisted in installation of working drainage system to make collection of water more effective for families
•    Creation of Workshop group for Mothers in the community to attend and learn craft skills such as weaving, knitting and jewellery making. Attendance has increased from 23 to 195, in  two years.
•    Established partnerships with visiting tour groups to exhibit workshop produce to sell to visitors and generate an income for the community

Education
•    Increase from 13 students to 150 at local community primary school in
the last two years.
•    Commendation from Department of Education and acknowledgement of
Pumamarca as ambassador school
•    Commitment from Dept of Education to fund five teachers and to increase
this to eight by 2010
•    Building of eight classrooms, in conjunction with the community in order
to allow for increased attendance
•    Run successful volunteer programme, with volunteers teaching English,
art and Physical Education at the school in conjunction with local
teachers who cover the local curriculum

Hygiene at the school
•    Installation of a water reservoir at the school to provide safe drinking
water
•    Installation of flushing toilets with a septic tank
•    Development of a hygiene program teaching the children how to wash their
face and hands and brush their teeth
•    Built and equipped a kitchen so that nutritious meals can be prepared
and supplied to the children at school by the community mothers everyday

SITUATION IN PERU
•    Peru’s population is just over 28.3 million
•    54 % of the population lives below the extreme poverty line.
•    63 % of these are children and adolescents.
•    49 % of the population lives on less than $1.20 a day.
•    90+% of the children in the communities we work with are extremely
malnutritioned
•    More than 1/4 of Peru’s children never attend school.  In our
communities, the figure was around 95% until we started helping
•    In the Cuzco region the illiteracy rate for children is 18% and adults 11%


 

 



info@southerncrossings.com

 

 

 Consultants and
participants in the

Kids TV Series
Are We There Yet?
Read More...

 



Visit the social project we support in Cuzco