Casita de Madera is a nursery and after-school homework help centre located in Ramón Castilla, an extremely impoverished area between Huanchaco and Trujillo. The parents here are often too preoccupied with earning enough money to enable their family to survive to educate their children, and often don’t have the skills to do so as they didn’t finish their own education. The centre works to provide an education to these children that would otherwise be working alongside their parents with no real basis of knowledge. The centre was only expanded in July 2010 to include the second classroom for older children to come and receive homework help. The expansion of the project has been a big success but resources have not allowed for the second classroom to be furnished and so older children are still being taught in the pre-school classroom, with tables and chairs built for toddlers and much younger children. Please help us to buy some basic furniture to create a more positive learning environment for these kids.

The Puesto de Salud in Huanchaquito is a small but extremely well functioning medical centre on the outskirts of Huanchaco, in a very impoverished area where the majority of inhabitants have no access to water or electricity. The staff at the clinic work exceptionally hard to provide a basic health care system to the community, but struggle with the lack of resources that are available to them. The clinic was lucky enough to receive a donation this year and was able to buy much needed materials for the centre. However, the clinic is still vastly under-stocked but with your help we can help buy resources to aid the nurses working within the constraints of a very minimal government allowance.

Tulio Herrera León is a school for the blind, deaf and autistic in Trujillo that this year celebrated its 30th anniversary. In the past, to have a disabled or visually impaired child in Peru was something of an embarrassment and the majority of families didn’t know how to cope with the situation. Tulio Herrera León has made a huge impact on the quality of life for these warm, energetic and loving children as well as working to enhance the understanding of families and the community as a whole of how to raise and educate disabled children. The school received a donation of a Braille printer to facilitate the learning of the blind children educated at the school. However, the printer has been sat in storage in Lima for months, as the school cannot afford to pay the import tax or have the printer transported to Trujillo. With your help we can pay the tax now set at 1500 soles (roughly £350/$560/€410) and allow Tulio to utilise this fantastic resource.

All of the projects that we work with run with very minimal resources and often few staff. Any contribution you can give makes a huge difference to these projects and the people we are working to help. Please specify which project you would like to donate to or we will decide on your behalf where your money could best be used.

As a small charity any general donation to OCN is very welcome. This helps us to continue expanding our work, helping all the projects we work with in various ways including maintaining and increasing a steady supply of appropriate and well motivated volunteers. Thank You in anticipation of whatever you can give.