Travel Tips

4 Ways to Volunteer in Peru’s Local Communities

Center of Traditional Andean Textiles is located in Chinchero, a small Andean Indian Village that overlooks the Sacred Valley. Resident, Nilda Callanaupa, founded the Center of Traditional Andean Textiles, an organization to train women in traditional crafts, such as weaving. The initiative has expanded from Chinchero to 11 other areas around Peru, including a shop in Cusco featuring works from each of the women. A percentage of sales goes back to sustain the individual projects.

Cusimayo opened its first kindergarten school in 2011 on Lake Titicaca. They’ve launched a campaign called “1,000 dreams” to serve 11 impoverished communities around the Lake. Cusimayo’s goal is to offer breakfast, school supplies and hygiene kits to 20,000 preschoolers daily in 2013.

Acoiba Manatee Orphan Rescue Center opened in Iquitos opened four years ago to rescue, rehabilitate and reintroduce these mammals to their natural habitat. Hunting is the Amazonian freshwater manatees biggest threat, but projections of water levels in the Amazon reducing by 70-80 percent by 2030 is further hurting these endangered species.

Hippotherapy is a form of physical, occupational and speech therapy, where a  therapist uses the characteristic movements of a horse to provide carefully graded motor and sensory input for mentally and physically disabled people. Of 30 million Peruvians, an estimated 6 percent live with a handicap such as Down’s syndrome, autism or cerebral palsy. Anadesi introduced hippotherapy to Peru, which uses horses to help rehabilitate handicapped children. Anadesi’s first project at Club Escuestre Huachipia works with 15-20 underprivileged children per week.

Text and video by Michaela Guzy for PeterGreenberg,com. Guzy is the founder of OhThePeopleYouMeet.com.