Feeding the Vulnerable in the Peruvian High Andes

Please help us feed the most vulnerable members of our community in the Sacred Valley of Peru. The region we are supporting spans from the small towns of Huaran & Sillacancha on the Willkamayu river, all the way up to the high mountain indigenous communities, including, Charan, Saywapate, Churu, Taqllapata & Cancha Cancha. We are reaching out to our global community to raise funds to provide essential food supplies to those most in need during this time.

On March 15, Peru declared a state of emergency due to COVID-19, resulting in a military enforced lockdown of the entire country. All external and internal travel halted, most businesses closed, tourists left and residents required to stay home. It was one of the strictest quarantines in the world. Four months later, things have started opening up slowly, and some regulations have been lifted. Unfortunately though, tourism, one of the main sources of income for this region, remains non-existent. Furthermore, schools are shut until at least January. 

In our first month of this campaign, we provided 104 families in our community with food baskets. These families are members of our community without access to land to grow their own food, often single moms or the elderly who are struggling with hunger and malnutrition due to the economic hardships exacerbated by the strict governmental restrictions imposed in COVID-19 Lockdown. 

Delivering each individual basket to family homes yielded profound insights that helped us identify more impactful solutions.

Moving forward, we will continue to feed the most vulnerable families until December 2020, in two different ways: A daily soup kitchen providing children in the lower basin with meals and food baskets for families in the high-altitude communities.

‘Comedor para Ninos’ is a service where we provide cooked lunches for children in the Huaran basin region, including Huaran, Alto Huaran, Sillacancha, Charan and Saywapata. These meals are served from Monday through Friday at Casita Huaran.

To feed a child for a month costs $30, for six months costs $180.

We will continue to provide food baskets to the higher altitude communities of Cancha Cancha, Taqllapata & Churo, where access to basic food supplies is much more difficult.

A food basket costing $40 dollars feeds a family for a month and $240 feeds a family for six months.

Our target goal is to raise $38,000.

We've adjusted the target goal, based on cash donations received.

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‘De Vecino A Vecino’ is a volunteer run collective with no administrative costs. All donations go towards:

- Purchasing food from local vendors and farmers 
- The required transport (including horses, porters, cars) to purchase and deliver the food
-  Personnel Costs - daily salaries for eight local cooks that work on rotation for Comedor para Ninos & stipend for four Quechua boys that translate and support community relations.

We are a multicultural group of neighbours, who have found a home in this Andean community, and feel a deep responsibility, desire and urgent need to contribute in whatever way we can. We have seen first-hand the economic and health impact the COVID-19 lockdown is having on the most vulnerable families around us, and we want to ensure that no one in our community struggles with hunger and worries about where their next meal is coming from.

For more information and to see a detailed budget breakdown check out our website , or follow us on social media .

Every Dollar Helps Us Feed Our Neighbours in Need! Thank you for your contribution!