Intiwawa Peru's Children of the Sun

"She wakes up every day at 4am, gets up, lights the stove and helps her mum. At 4.30am her mum goes to do her job making mud bricks. Meanwhile she wakes her younger twin sisters, helps them to wash, cook and eat breakfast, brush their teeth, comb their hair and generally looks after them. At 7am she goes to school. At 2pm she returns home, finishes cooking the lunch that her mum had started preparing and gives it to her little sisters. She helps them to change from their uniforms and at 2.40pm they all go to Intiwawa. On weekends the 3 children work with their mum making bricks. They have no father. Their mother returns home at 6pm each night exhausted after more than 12 hours hard manual labour. This super child is called DULCE (Sweet in english). At Intiwawa we don't have time to be sad because the children are our super heroes!"

Hi, if you don’t know me, my name is Leah and I work with Dulce each day. For the past year we have been working with over 200 children in southern Peru who live in disadvantaged communities. I have set up this givealittle page for 1 month to raise funds for the general day to day running of the charity that we work with called Intiwawa.

The towns we work in are populated by low income earners who have often received no or minimal formal education. Unfortunately this environment presents few opportunities for the people of the community to build a better future for themselves and their children. They often live in a basic brick house consisting of one room for the entire family, they have no running water and few have electricity. Water is retrieved from communal taps in the street but is not drinkable.

Many families we help work 6-7 long days a week in the brick making industry. Making bricks is hard labour under the hot sun which reaps little money. Many of the children begin working in the brick industry from as young as 3 years old. Also due to the long hours worked by the parents many of the older children often need to cook and care for their younger siblings.

For the past year we have been working to make a difference in the daily lives of these children with the hope that they may have greater opportunities in future. I don’t want to degrade what a person must do to put food on the table but the reality is that the future for many of these children will be selling sweetened water or lolly pops out of a cardboard box on the side of a dusty road.

Now is your chance to help make a difference to the lives of these children!

Please donate to the challenges that I will be undertaking with some of the children and volunteers of Intiwawa on Saturday 25 June by clicking on the pink button above. Intiwawa is a native Quechua word meaning “Children of the Sun” and is the name of the charitable organisation that we work with in Peru.

My intention with these challenges is to create a day of fun and laughter with the children. So don’t expect to find us breaking any world records. But you can definitely expect to see lots of photo and video footage of children being allowed to laugh and play like children should for a few hours.

$5, $20, $100, $1000 - Every donation makes a difference no matter how big or small. Your donation will go towards the daily running of Intiwawa which includes homework materials such as pens, pencils and erasers; a daily meal for the children usually based around rice, pasta or quinoa; educational materials such as books, art and sport supplies; water which is delivered by truck monthly, utilities such as electricity and gas, maintenance of the casa and facilities; transport to higher villages; special events and fiestas.

As examples $5 allows us to buy a box of pencils for the kids to complete their homework, $50 allows us to provide a nutritious meal for 100 kids, $500 gives us 9 months of water supply, $5,000 allows us to bring xmas and special events to over 200 children and their families.

Please donate now by clicking the pink button above.

What do we actually do?

Intiwawa is fully manned by volunteers from Peru and around the globe. A core aspect of our work is helping the children with their education which means helping them with their homework each day after school. We also work hard to teach them about good health and hygiene by washing their hands on arrival each day, brushing their teeth, boiling water to drink and having a clean and tidy casa (house). We have two lovely mamitas (mothers) whom come each day and cook a meal for 50-100 children. The children are taught about their own Quechua culture and the cultures of the world.

Besides helping to give the kids greater opportunities for their future, another key objective of Intiwawa is to give them the opportunity to be a kid today. To allow them to laugh and play like most other children. Therefore we organise regular fun events where for example we dance, sing and eat cake. Also each weekend we encourage as many children as possible to attend arts, sports and language classes with us.

We have many other projects which come and go. A couple of current projects we have on the go are free dental work for the children and free legal work for solo parents.

Who is Intiwawa?

15 years ago a young Peruvian university student named Leonel came to a small community called San Isidro to gather information for his psychology degree. He found a community that he couldn’t walk away from. From small beginnings of working with a few children on the side of a dusty road one morning a week Leonel still works with the children today. However he now has the assistance of over 50 volunteers each year, a small team of volunteer administrators in Germany and a small but dedicated Peruvian committee. And the few children in the street has grown to over 200 children being assisted in 3 communities in highlands of southern Peru.

Intiwawa is fully funded by personal donations and fundraising events. There is no big corporate backer and no government funding. All administration and marketing is provided free by volunteers therefore every cent of each donation goes towards the children.

What Challenges Saturday 25 June?

So I asked my friends and family for suggested challenges and they sent me lots of great ideas. They suggested that the challenge should include the children which I agreed sounded terrific. This also allowed me to veto any ideas that could result in my death or near death – yay!

So on Saturday 25 June I will be undertaking a number of challenges with some of the Intiwawa children at San Isidro, Arequipa, Peru including: a human tower, wheel barrow race, dance-off, block tower, egg and spoon race, piggy back race, trivia comp.