The Peru Children’s trust now has 2 key pillars to its work.

1. Helping orphaned children and children in need:

The trust started to help orphaned children and children in need and this is carried out through a program of child sponsorship. This still remains the key work of the trust.

Support of Children

The trust was set up in 1992 with the aim of improving the living standards of children in Peru. It does this in a number of ways:

Improve living standards by funding their housing needs. For example installation of sanitation, roofing the house or donating bedding and clothing.

Improve the health standards by funding healthcare for children and their families who do not qualify for the government benefits.

Enabling education. Education in Peru is officially free. the government pays the teachers salaries but everything else ( books stationery, uniforms etc) have to be bought by the parents. This makes it virtually impossible for poor children to go to school. The Trust supports orphans and poor children by providing them with uniform, shoes, and other needs.

Family guidance and teaching. This is provided via small women’s welfare groups, Sunday School, children holiday weeks, pastoral visits and Bible studies.

Many children are not aware of their birth date - in fact many have not been registered at Birth - and have certainly never celebrated it. The trust holds monthly birthday parties for them. This is important to the children who start to feel more valued.

All of this is managed through Manuel Renaga and 3 administrative assistants.

2. Support of young people by giving them skills

The second pillar is focused on support of the young people once their initial education has been completed. The aim is to provide skills that will lead to employment and therefore sustainable self support as they grow older.

With the help of our supporters the trust has recently built a comprehensive set of workshops and this is where the young people are taught the skills they need, including hairdressing, welding, machine knitting, Carpentry, dressmaking, bakery and grain milling.

The Trust started off helping pre-school and school-aged children. Over time we realised that these children needed help as they grew up and left school. The training Centre was aimed at meeting the needs of post school-aged children.

The aim is to give these young people in the Trust an opportunity to learn a skill which will enable them to earn a living when they leave school. Unemployment is extremely high in Peru, even for those that have had the privilege of higher education, and without practical skills the young people can end up simply trying to scrape a living by selling things on the street or in the markets.

In 2001 Manuel found a suitable site for the centre which they initially rented, but by the end of the year enough funds had been raised by the trust to buy the land. A large building - to house the workshops- was then started and this was completed in August 2004.

The completed workshops are:

Welding
Dressmaking
Woodwork
Bakery
Cosmetics and Hairdressing
Cooking



registered charity number 1063976