Our Project in Peru focuses on education, female empowerment, and life on land. Our approach is to work closely with local partners. Cusco is the main city for tourism in Peru. Speaking English is a skill that will open opportunities for employment. Peru is listed among the top ten countries vulnerable to climate change so environmental conservation is also a priority.
We support English classes at the Pongobamba school, the biggest school in the Piuray micro basin. Between 2018-2019 142 High school students from 16 different communities took English lessons and 265 hours of support were provided. There were also 90 tour guides supported with English workshops at the institute.
In rural communities, women often work towards tourism with direct services or selling artisan work. English has become a defining factor to improve their business skills and their families’ lives. In 2019, the English for Business program was initiated. Phase one of the program was completed by 25 students. In the second stage, 16 students from two different tourism associations completed the program.
We work alongside two local partners in the project ‘Adaptation to water resources management to climate change’ working towards organic agriculture, green infrastructure, and environmental education. Since 2018, 3147 trees have been planted as part of this partnership. In 2019, 245 students attended environmental conservation workshops in Pongobamba school. These workshops were also implemented in 13 other schools. We worked on a Warm House project at Pongobamba school and the school won a Ministry of Education award in sustainability for the project.
We worked for almost six weeks cleaning and fencing the water fountain known as Media Luna in the Valle Chosica community. We removed seaweed from the surface and cleaned the spaces surrounding the site. Surrounded the area with fencing means better control of the use of water by the community and its cattle.
The ‘Programa Global de Aprendizaje y Observaciones en Beneficio del Medio Ambiente’, was created, 23 years ago, by NASA with the aim of schools investigating and understanding the environment through standardized protocols worldwide. The youth of the Mateo Pumacahua School, with investment from us, will be part of an international platform and will generate meteorological data such as temperature, humidity, and precipitation. This information will be useful at local, provincial, regional, and even worldwide levels, since the database It is freely available and even scientists from different countries can use the data for climate change research.