Please help me to support Veronica and her inspiring family to meet their basic needs of a safe and secure home, from where they can fulfill their already evident potential and achieve their educational and life goals despite living in poverty.

The purpose of this Fundraiser

My name is Ana. I am Peruvian but have lived in the UK since 1980, mostly in Colchester and Wivenhoe in Essex. I am currently in Peru temporarily , caring for my elderly 98-year-old mother. Veronica is one of my mother’s Peruvian carers, who I have come to know since my return. In Peru, like many other Latin American countries, a minority live in wealth and comfort whilst a significant number of people – like Veronica live in stark poverty. In her case, this is despite relentless hard work marked by determination, faith, optimism and dignity.

Veronica (38) has been a single parent to her three children (Carmen 20, Valeria 13 and Samuel 11) and her younger brother Matias (14).

Click HERE - See Veronica here building her house

She commutes daily -3 hours each way- from rural Peru to work in the city, in her effort to provide for her and her family and also to build-more or less brick by brick as she can afford it – a small, dry, safe, permanent home for them. Her story is only one, but I have come to know her and have been inspired by her courage, discipline, endurance and love for her family. I am hopeful that by raising the funds needed to complete the building of their home, we can help to meet their basic needs for shelter and safety. There onwards, I feel confident that they will continue to devote their energy to fulfill their potential, individually and as a family. The images below introduce the family (whose names I’ve changed to protect their privacy) and show their efforts so far, to build their home.

In order to obtain Veronica’s permission to undertake this fundraiser project, and to gather the necessary information to show doners how the funds would be specifically used, I explained to her the concept of “fundraisers” and their ultimate goal of making a difference in people’s lives. Based on her personal experience of always facing struggles alone, she found the idea of receiving this kind of support from strangers beyond miraculous as well as astonishingly kind and generous. Thus, in order to show total transparency, she has worked out the costs and has written them – with the help of her children – in great detail so that donors would be in no doubt as to how their generous contributions would be used. I wish to honour their breakdown of costs as they have given them to me. I hope it makes sense.

The costs for finishing the building in order that the whole house has brick walls (rather than a flimsy material), that there is concrete floor (rather than living directly on sand) and a corrugated metal roof throughout, and that they finally have windows (the original hut did not have any windows) and a proper safe metal door is estimated at US$ 3,029 or £2,400). In any housebuilding context in the UK or USA this might be considered a small amount to complete a building, but it represents almost an unsurmountable mountain for Veronica and her family to save. This amount does not include any sewage system at the moment as they have created an ecological and effective method of disposal of sewage. Water is bought in large cylinders every fortnight. This is recycled in every possible way every day. What this figure does include, however, is connection to electricity from a source a few hundred meters away, including registration with the electricity company, purchase of cables for this purpose and labour. So far she has been mostly managing with one solar panel for the minimum necessary. It is worth mentioning that she is a pioneer of the use of this kind of energy in her area (in Peru generally solar panels are rare unfortunately). While they have been building the first part of their improved home and had no roof and hardly any walls, she could not make use of her solar panel and has been lending it to neighbours who have started considering this type of energy.

As I provide regular updates, with the progress of the works, I would also like to share with donors more about Veronica’s story in order that you appreciate the measure of what your contributions will mean to such an inspiring family.

Breakdown of costs and how funds raised would be used – in order of priority:

1. US$ 515 (£411) - Remaining of concrete flooring (50 m2), including cement, sand, crushed stones, and labour.

2. US$ 453 (£359) - One Front door and two small windows, including window frames and glass.

3. US$ 370 (£295) - Materials to separate the space into small bedroom areas for the children (2 boys aged 14 and 12, and a girl aged 13. Oldest daughter now 20, lives at the Air Force quarters during the week) - including 12 MDF sheets, 24 wooden posts, nails of various types , four internal doors, and labour (2 days).

4. US$ 125 (£100) - Metal roofing

5. US$ 1,057 (£844) - Building of the remaining of the brick walls to enclose the house

The total estimated amount needed to finish the build and finally provide this family of 5 with a basic and a moderately strong and safe home is: US$ 3,029 (£2,400)

Any contribution you would make, however small, would be of meaningful value to them and would be received with deep and sincere gratitude.

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For donors who would like to know more about Veronica’s inspiring story of unfathomable determination, hard work and love and care for her family, please read Veronica’s story gathered through our conversations:

For the past few months, Veronica has been coming three times a week to help me care for my mother. She was recommended to me by a neighbour in my mum’s building. In conversation one day, I learned she had been bringing up her children alone for over 10 years, struggling financially, working as a cook and cleaner without childcare support. For a while, she took on work in remote parts of Peru as a cook with construction companies, taking her children with her, along the way acquiring some basic construction skills herself from observing the builders and offering to help for a little extra money.

Her aim was to be able to open a little restaurant in Lima where her children would have a better chance of an education. Through sheer hard work and determination, she achieved this. The food she cooked in her little restaurant became well known in the area and she experimented with new dishes and prepared food through the night while the children slept. The family improved their accommodation, the children were happy at school, and things were finally picking up.

Then Covid happened. Veronica had to close and was forced to sell all of her equipment at a fraction of its cost. With her savings she bought a small plot of land in the only place she could afford, on sand dunes 2 hours out of Lima. She and her oldest daughter built a hut with a sheet metal roof and the family moved in. No running water, electricity, sewage system or flooring. The new home was isolated, and they were worried about security, but Veronica did her best to manage the children’s fears and still impart in them a sense of adventure, independence and new beginnings.

Veronica herself returned to cooking and cleaning for others, travelling 4 hours each day to/from work in Lima and organising a moto-taxi (a form of rickshaw) to take the children to school in her absence. The children managed their own homework and completed the household chores between them, having had instilled in them strong values: determination, teamwork, mutual support and optimism. Gradual progress on the hut was made. Veronica bought a solar panel for energy, and built a home-made, ecological sewage system, involving the deep burial of sewage in the sand, which eventually becomes manure for their small garden - a tiny oasis they’ve cultivated within a sand dune. They use huge cylinders of water (recycled to the last drop) enabled them to grow vegetables, fruit and herbs, and they ate healthily due to Veronica’s knowledge and skills as a cook.

This was their situation until just after Christmas this year, when it rained hard. In Peru when it rains, those living in poverty or in exposed places suffer deeply. Flooding brings landslides and whole communities can lose their homes and have to start over. The roof that Veronica built leaked and leaked, until one morning they woke in sodden beds, the hut full of mosquitoes due to the dampness and heat. Veronica realized another period of heavy rain would destroy their walls too, with only saturated sand beneath them. She took on extra work, in addition to her job with us, and took out some small loans. The children started making things to sell at the beach. Gradually they bought bricks, cement and sand, and metal sheets for the roof.

The whole family have worked on the building in the sun and the heat, over the children’s summer holiday, mixing cement and carrying bricks, in place of hoped-for holidayactivities. But despite their huge efforts, they have only been able to afford a portion of the house; one space where they cook, sleep and spend the day, which is only partly roofed, walled and hard-floored, and has no electricity other than the one solar panel and a cable run from a neighbour’s property, that they can only use sparingly. Public transport, although very cheap in Peru, has become prohibitive for them too. And school starts again in the middle of March when this current living situation will become yet more challenging.

So, this is the situation now, the beginning of a new challenge and the reason for this fundraiser. Thank you for your interest in reading this. Above is Veronica’s full breakdown of their current needs. But again, any contribution would be just wonderful.

Please help me help them. Ana